The Logic of Love (and Other Fallacies)
by StoryWriter831
Summary: Jane not only picked her nose, but the Malfoys also witnessed her eating its contents; she used her sleeves in place of napkins; would belch loudly, especially at the dinner table; spilled food all over herself, the table, and the floor when she ate; frequently abandoned her cutlery altogether to pick at her meat and vegetables with her grimy fingers. My O.C. is not a Mary Sue.
1. Nightmare

**Beta:** the artful scribbler

 **Posted:** 11/21/2015

 **Full synopsis:** With their manor being used as headquarters to the Dark Lord's new regime, Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco are becoming undone. Their world becomes further unhinged when he places his new pet Muggle – who possesses a strange power – in their care. Will their troubles never end? Or will this enigmatic little waif ultimately become their salvation?

 **A/N:** **I've been told that my story really takes off – that I hit my authorial stride – around the middle of chapter three. After this one, chapter one, I start telling my story through the eyes of Voldemort. He is _not_ a huge part of this book - don't get the wrong idea. But I need my readers to understand how he sees my Original Character, Jane, and why he doesn't decide to torture/maim/off her, per his usual modus operandi. Kay? After the fourth chapter, I revert...almost exclusively, to the Malfoys point of view. (Jane's POV doesn't come along till chapter 19, 'A Dissembler in an Oubliette'. Tres magnifique, n'es pas?) So, that said, please give my story a chance for a few chapters, and if you aren't fully hooked by the end of chapter 3, by all means: move on.**

 **I also feel readers should know that this story begins about six weeks after Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape from Malfoy Manor in Deathly Hallows. My story isn't going to contain many deviations from the main body of canon, but the major one is that my book will take place over the course of a year, after Deathly Hallows and in the duration Harry, Ron, and Hermione will still be looking for Horcruxes. (Poor them). Don't ask me what the hold up is, because I have no idea. This isn't a story for the Trio, they already have theirs; this one's for the Malfoys, whom I love.**

* * *

But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches  
Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches."  
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort  
"We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"

 _The_ _Sneetches_ – by Dr. Seuss

 **Nightmare**

 **27th May, 1998**

From her position on the plush sofa Narcissa noticed her husband walk over to the mahogany sideboard to refill his drink. Again. She watched as he unstoppered the crystal decanter of oak-barreled mead and poured himself a generous measure of the expensive liquor with pale trembling fingers. He turned around and saw her watching him.

"Sure you won't have one, pet?" he asked.

Repressing a sigh, she politely declined his offer and allowed her eyes to return to the book in her lap.

If only her mind could actually focus on the material in front of her. She honestly wasn't even sure what book she had taken from the shelf. She flipped it over to examine the title. _Pure-Blood Power vs. the Muggle Agenda_. Oh yes, an old favorite.

But, as beloved as it was, it couldn't have any hold over her mind tonight. How could it, when everything was so wrong, and had been for so long?

She wondered if Lucius knew she was pretending to read and then she wondered where her son had gone. It was late so he was probably asleep. They were all fairly ragged after the last month's punishments; the Dark Lord had been merciless after that slippery Potter brat had escaped.

She had gone over and over the events of that ill-fated evening and still couldn't work out how it had all gone so horribly awry. Those wretched misfits were safely tied up in the cellar, for Morgana's sake. Wandless, helpless. For a few tentative moments, Narcissa had begun to hope that their redemption was _finally_ within grasp!

But, no, of course not. That sort of good fortune belonged to another life now. That beautiful, priceless luck, which had always seemed to envelope them so effortlessly, had abandoned them when Lucius was imprisoned, and it had yet to reappear. So Potter had managed to get away, along with the Dark Lord's prisoners.

Merlin's beard, she would never forget the look on his snake face when they had tried to explain to him everything that happened. The magically wrought distortions of his features often masked his expressions, making them difficult to decipher. But over the past year, with him using their mansion as his headquarters, she had become so intimately acquainted with him that she was now able, with ease, to decode each subtle twitch and crinkle of mouth and brow.

"Dobby?" he'd fumed, his cold voice getting icier with every fresh transgression revealed. "And what, pray tell, is a Dobby?"

From the corner of the room, where she was applying Dittany to the cuts Draco had sustained from their shattered chandelier, Narcissa watched the Dark Lord's eyes and mouth vacillate between rage and incredulity, as her husband and sister cowered before him on bended knee. In terror, trying to control their shaking voices, they had tried to minimize the vital role the elf had played in assisting Potter's narrow exodus. But to no avail; he'd questioned them relentlessly, familiarizing himself with every shameful detail of their failure. It was a humiliation beyond everything, the insult on top of the injury, and they would never live it down. The fact that Bellatrix had probably managed to plant that dagger deep into its treacherous belly was hardly a consolation. Not at this point. In fact, that dagger was an invaluable Black family heirloom, and now, where ever it was, it was soiled with that filthy creature's blood. The knife was irretrievable and tainted, and the senseless use to which it had been put rankled with her. But that had always been her sister's way. Act first, think later.

Narcissa was pulled gently from her dark reverie when, from behind, she heard Bellatrix sauntering stiffly into the sitting room. Her impetuous sister came round the sofa and slowly lowered herself onto it. Bellatrix tried for a futile moment to find a position that might afford her some comfort, then seemed to give up and turned her attention on her brother-in-law.

"Lucius, be a dear and pour us a drink."

Lucius turned puffy, blood-shot eyes on his wife's sister, and then, acting as though he hadn't heard her, he made his own painstaking path to the wide armchair beside the fireplace and gently sat down. Once settled, he delicately swirled the amber liquid around his glass for a moment, looked Bellatrix squarely in the eye, and then raised the mead to his mouth for a casual sip.

Narcissa could practically feel the fury pouring off Bella.

In an effort to placate her, she whipped out her wand and with a few efficient strokes she hurriedly transported a bottle of her sister's favorite wine from the sideboard and conjured a glass. She tried not to notice the hurt look on Lucius's face as she uncorked the bottle and poured Bellatrix her drink. Bellatrix seemed to realize that Narcissa was trying to head off another argument, so she accepted the drink with a polite response and refrained from berating Lucius for his rudeness.

"How was Mother?" Narcissa asked.

"The same," Bellatrix replied.

"Is her rheumatism better?"

"No," Bellatrix stated flatly. "She wouldn't stop complaining about it either."

Bellatrix related this with complete indifference.

"Did you give her the Copasane Potion?"

"Of course. She sends her thanks for that."

"What else did you talk about?"

Lucius, Bellatrix, Narcissa and Draco had all been under house-arrest for the past six weeks. The Dark Lord had even forbidden her poor son from returning to Hogwarts so he could complete his last few weeks of term. Despite her fear of the Dark Lord, Narcissa had tried to plead with him on Draco's behalf.

"What's the point? His education hasn't done him any good as far as I can see," he had cruelly replied.

However, the Dark Lord had finally granted Narcissa and Bellatrix leave to visit their ailing mother, but Narcissa, much as she longed to see her, longed to leave the house even, hadn't wished to be separated from her husband and son, and had ended up foregoing the pleasure. Bella wouldn't have bothered except Narcissa had nagged her into submission.

"Please, Bella," she had pleaded with her sister. "Mother isn't well. All of her letters are expressing her discomfort and her desire to see us."

" _Her_ discomfort? What about _our_ discomfort? We're the ones being tortured and beaten every few days! Do you think she cares about that? What if she notices I haven't got my wand? I'd die, Cissy! Besides, she's fine. She's just bored."

 _Bored and lonely_ , thought Narcissa. _And worried about us._

So she had wheedled and whined and cajoled Bella, and assured her over and over that their unobservant mother wouldn't realize she was missing her wand, until she'd reluctantly agreed to have dinner with her.

Now, half in an effort to discover her mother's real state of health and half to hear some news of the outside world, Narcissa attempted to draw Bellatrix out of herself. It was like trying to extract intelligence from a mudblood. Impossible.

"What else did you talk about with her?"

"Nothing."

"You must have talked about something. Did she say how our Prewitt cousins are?"

"Not really. She blathered on and on about Diforia's wedding plans, but I managed not to listen to half of it," Bella said, shrugging her shoulders as though to indicate apathy, but her eyes gleaming with a hint of pride.

"Did she say where they were planning to honeymoon?"

"For Morgana's sake, Cissy, I don't know. She probably did say but I don't remember. You're the one who corresponds with them. Don't you know where they're planning to go?"

"I can't remember," she lied.

Lucius glanced up at her from the book he was pretending to read and said, "Lyme. That's what you read from her letter at breakfast a couple of weeks ago, love."

"Oh, yes," she answered. "Remember when we went to Lyme? Those porky German witches in the room next to ours kept us up half the night."

Her husband's gaze was drifting vacantly around the spacious room and he nodded absently.

She sighed and made one more effort.

"Remember those stupid Muggles on the beach? We kept using the _Deficianado_ hex to break up those ridiculous castles they were trying mold out of the sand." She affected a strained little laugh. "They gave up after a while and finally dragged their stinky, whiny brats off for some ice-cream."

"Yes," Lucius mumbled. He had his eyes on his book though and didn't seem to notice her attempts to reminisce about happier times.

 _Would it kill them to_ try, she thought.

All she wanted was an attempt at normality. Without their wands they had become walking, talking, sniping shells.

"I suppose Mother served roast quail," Narcissa said, desperate enough to discuss cuisine.

"Who gives a flying hippogriff what she served, Cissy?" Bellatrix said loudly, frustrated by her sister's inane inquiries.

"Don't raise your voice at my wife," Lucius growled, glaring at Bella with his flinty grey eyes.

"Don't you try to tell and me what to do, Lucius! She's my little sister and I can talk to her anyway I please," Bella instantly retorted.

And they were off.

"Not in this house," Lucius scolded. "I'll remind you for the umpteenth time that you are simply a _guest_ in our home. If you don't show some respect you'll be asked to leave."

"I'm _Narcissa's_ guest. And this is as much her home as it yours."

"I didn't say it was _my_ home. I said that you're a guest in _our_ home, and 'our' includes me, as well as her, therefore I have as much say over who stays here as she does."

"He didn't say it was his home, Bella," Narcissa interjected, trying to mediate. "Lucius, it wasn't as though she was yelling at me. She's just tired."

No matter how she approached her husband and sister, she couldn't seem to find a way to diminish the animosity that had developed between them. Up to a point she hadn't felt comfortable taking sides, and now it no longer mattered. Bella was stuck here until the Dark Lord lifted their sentence of confinement, because _somehow_ it hadn't occurred to him that banishing Bellatrix from his presence would be a far worse punishment than imprisoning her in his headquarters.

Narcissa was wearied by their constant bickering, and this one was even more pointless than usual.

"Cissy doesn't want me to leave, do you Cissy?" asked Bellatrix with complete confidence.

Lowering her voice and averting her eyes she softly replied, "Of course, not."

"That means _yes_ ," Lucius told Bellatrix emphatically.

Narcissa, rendered graceless from her sore muscles, dragged herself off of the sofa and left the room, and their squabbling, behind.

In keeping with a new ritual, she headed for her son's room. When she reached his door she knocked softly, waited to see if he would reply, and - once the silence assured that he wouldn't - let herself in.

As it was almost summer, he had thrown wide the large windows of his bedroom and a soft sweet breeze was caressing the curtains, causing them to flutter out towards her like welcoming arms. She went to the side of his bed and admired his sleeping moon-lit form. Naked from the waist up, he was on his stomach and had his arms and legs spread out starfish style. Her heart ached as she studied him. The prone position he had assumed for sleep was a familiar one to her - he had slept this way since he was a child. His ivory complexion had always made him seem so clean, like a blank slate waiting to be filled. She slowed her breaths till they were as even and deep as his, allowing the gentle rhythms of their unhurried existence to soothe her. He was just as perfect and long-limbed as his father she noted with pleasure.

Her son was just about all she derived any pleasure from these days. He was also the source of her greatest anxieties. What would happen to him?

She pulled her wand from the pocket of her gown and, holding it close to his skin so their lights wouldn't wake him, she began breathing mild spells over his body. The Dark Lord had forbidden the Malfoys and Bella from healing their injuries with magic, as it would defeat the purpose of their punishments. But Narcissa didn't care. She wasn't going to let Draco suffer like Lucius and herself. It wasn't his fault their old house-elf had freed the captives, effectively destroying their credit with the Dark Lord and his other servants. It was bad enough listening to her only child screaming in agony while receiving the Dark Lord's wrath. She couldn't bring herself to think of it as torture. Not when it applied to Draco. If she thought of him being tortured she would go insane.

The spells she was using weren't as strong as some others that she knew, they wouldn't heal him completely. Mostly they promoted the relaxation of muscles and reduced swelling. It would give him a better night's rest and provide a partial easing of his aches throughout the next day. She wished she could do more.

What she really wished was that she could somehow scour the skull and snake off of his right arm and send him to Siberia. Or perhaps - because if she was going to indulge in wishful thinking she might as well go all out - invent a spell for time-travel and completely relive the last few years of her life. She knew exactly what she would do differently.

Physically, Draco was almost identical to his father. Over the years he had even adopted Lucius's mannerisms. He held his teacup and saucer with the same grip, crossed his legs like Lucius, and Draco even pronounced his words with the exact clarity and inflections as his father. It was sweet. But Narcissa knew that, no matter how proficient he might be at _emulating_ his father, he wasn't like Lucius, not really. Her mother-in-law, Rosamunde, had confirmed it to her many times over. But she'd always made it sound like an accusation, rather than something normal and natural. Rosamunde hadn't approved of Narcissa's child-raising methods; she thought there should be less affection and a lot more discipline.

"Your mollycoddling is turning my grandson into a pampered baby," her hard looks seemed to say whenever she saw Narcissa cuddling Draco.

But Draco was a very sensitive child; she couldn't bear to spank him. And whatever childish pranks he might have got up to, he was always respectful and completely compliant when he was with her. He was a doll really. She didn't care if he couldn't kill somebody or whether he had the stomach for torturing the Dark Lord's less faithful subjects. She just hoped, for _his_ sake, that over time he would be able to grow into his role of a Death Eater, since he had yet to demonstrate the same alacrity for it as his father.

The Dark Lord always said that love made people weak, and perhaps this was true, but Narcissa couldn't see how she could ever stop loving her son. No matter how vulnerable it made her.

She heard a low tapping on the door and, quickly straightening up, stowed the wand back in her gown.

Lucius pushed the door open and stepped a few paces into their son's bedroom, clutching another full glass of spirits. They looked at one another across the room, so many unspoken things between them. Separating them.

If Lucius suspected what she had just been doing he didn't mention it. He wasn't nearly as adept at Occlumency as she was and they both knew it.

"Are you coming to bed soon?" he whispered.

Instead of answering him she crossed the room and put her hand in his. She gazed into his eyes and silently asked, 'When will this nightmare end?'

She knew that if she had said it to him, out loud, he wouldn't know what to say. So she didn't.

Lucius unlaced his fingers from hers and wrapped his drink-free arm around her, pulled her close to him, and put his forehead against hers. They stood that way for quite a while, trying to support each other.


	2. Scabior and the Ginger-haired Thief

**Posted:** 11/22/2015

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Scabior and the Ginger-Haired Thief**

 **2** **nd** **June, 1998**

The Greatest Wizard who ever lived despised not knowing things, and for the past two years He had known that He was missing a vital piece of information. Wonderfully, inexplicably, through very little effort of His own the situation was beginning to rectify itself. He'd had to do some work though. Once the most pertinent part of the puzzle had fallen into His mind, He had to track down the piece. There was still so much He did not understand. But He wouldn't stop until He knew everything.

It all began a few weeks ago. Scabior had come to Malfoy Manor to find Him, and he had brought Him a present. At first sight, it was the shabbiest gift anyone could ever imagine receiving.

On His arrival to the manor for his weekly meeting, someone told Him that Scabior claimed to possess information that might be of interest to Him. Inwardly He had scoffed. Scabior wasn't exactly known for his intelligence; however, The Greatest Wizard had to concede that the Chief Snatcher could be cunning. He had to be, really, for the work that he did. So, after the meeting He had gone to the parlour to see what Scabior thought he had to offer.

When He walked into the room two things drew His eye, Scabior, reclining in a plump wingback, his leg thrown over the armrest and, off to the side, the bound disheveled figure of a grimy, thick-waisted man that The Greatest Wizard had never seen before. Upon His entrance Scabior immediately arose, crossed the room to his Master, and bowed to Him. Then he waited to be addressed.

"Well, Scabior," He began, "what have you brought for me?"

"My Lord, this man says 'e 'as information tha' you want. All 'e asks in exchange is 'is life," Scabior said, his head still bent.

The Greatest Wizard was irritated. What could Scabior possibly mean by this sort of interruption? He should know better. In fact he did know better, and that was the only reason he wasn't on the ground writhing in pain. Stifling a sigh, He gestured Scabior back into his chair and, taking a seat in the chair next to it, He conjured up some wine. Slightly shocked by this honor Scabior poured the wine; first for his Master, then for himself. He took a sip, grunted his appreciation of its superior quality, and once again waited for Him to speak.

The Most Powerful Wizard was tired. No one understood how hard it was to be Him. He leaned back in His soft chair and drank some of His wine, running His mind through the meeting He had just presided over. A year after Dumbledore's death and His plans were finally beginning to unfold properly. Since He had regained His power it had been an uphill battle, but the way forward was looking smooth at last. Regardless, there was still so much to do, so many new ideas to explore, new paths to tread, and new laws to write and invoke for England and all of wizard-kind. It was a brave new world - and it was up to Him to design and create it all single-handedly. Some days this burden weighed heavily on Him.

The Muggle world was infiltrating everything. They were everywhere you looked, brazen and oblivious, crowding every scene with their cars and their sky-scrapers. They even polluted the skies with those ludicrous flying machines. Their stench invaded Him. Those filthy breeders were like cockroaches, feasting on refuse, hiding behind the walls of His mind and they made His skin crawl. Since He had come to power His every move had been a step closer toward crushing them. But again and again He had been thwarted by those traitorous wizards and witches who pitied and petted the mudbloods. His blood boiled when He considered it. However, He had decided that dwelling on the past was a fruitless endeavor, so He moved His mind forward. He had overcome every obstacle, as was inevitable, and the future was dawning bright and clear before Him.

He looked at the unconscious wizard on the floor. The boozy, sweaty smell of him was wafting toward The Greatest Wizard, as though calling His attention. So He turned to Scabior and said simply, "Tell me."

Scabior had been politely surveying his luxurious surroundings, trying to grant his Master some privacy until he was ready for the meat of it. Once asked, however, he began his explanations straight away.

"You asked me to ge' a crew up for overseein' some of your d'liveries, over Diagon Alley way. "

His Master nodded to indicate that He understood the reference. He had selected certain dark objects to be...reallocated to His personal collections. The items were to be tracked down from the shops in Knockturn Alley and, once collected, they were meant to be moved to previously specified locations. He was expecting the merchandise to arrive tomorrow.

Scabior continued. "Me and Puffer was takin' care of it las' night. We was jus' tyin' up loose ends like, makin' sure we 'ad the las' lot. We was in a shop that's been abandoned for a while, figured it was safe. So we locked the doors and 'eaded over to the Witches Teet Pub for some...libations. We just nipped in an' out for a quickie see, but when we got back we caught 'im," and he gestured to the crusty heap on the floor, "an some others goin' through your valuables. We disarmed 'em quick enough, told 'em they was tryin' to nick your personal property. And you know 'ow it is. They was babblin' and blubberin' 'bout 'ow's they didn' know and couldn' we spare 'em as they all got such big families to feed. The usual duff. " He rolled his eyes and scoffed. "But then this one 'ere," and using his black boot he gently toed the crumpled heap on the floor, "starts goin' on and on bout 'ow 'e knew Dumbledore and 'e kept insistin' 'e 'ad some information you'd be wantin' pretty bad. So I asks 'im and 'e said 'e knows 'oo Dumbledore was gettin' all that info'mation off of las' year." Scabior had practically mumbled this last bit while he lowered his eyes to the floor.

The Greatest Wizard studied Scabior's stiff posture. He was obviously scared, as he should be.

What he was speaking of was something that wasn't spoken of. Everybody _knew_ , Him, His Death Eaters, members of the Order of the Phoenix, and even certain highly placed Ministry officials. But it was a mystery, something that had no name - rather like Himself; and it was subtle. So subtle that it had managed to elude even Him. Dumbledore had...something. A spy or a spell, some secret source of information that he had wielded, quite effectively, against The Greatest Wizard. But no matter how many people He tortured or force fed Veritaserum, no matter how many minds He had plundered, enlightenment had evaded Him.

It had started off slowly, especially that first year when the Ministry and the whole wider wizarding community were in denial about His return. It was His secret plans being unearthed and blocked. He had _always_ operated with the utmost stealth. What choice did He have? People were unreliable imbeciles and couldn't be trusted. But He had to delegate; His goals would have been insurmountable otherwise. And whenever He did, whenever He had met with them, one-on-one, privately, in rooms enchanted with the strongest spells of protection, it was as though some unseen...thing had followed him.

He didn't see it that way to begin with, and who would? At first He had simply blamed the cretins who called themselves His 'servants', and He was doling out the Cruciatus Curse on them daily. But after a while it became obvious that nothing was really adding up. His traps were being ambushed, and His Death Eaters were being captured left and right. He Himself had almost been apprehended... twice!

His most complex plans were utterly overthrown; His unspoken spontaneous ones were not. He kidnapped key people, tortured them, but whether they were members of Dumbledore's Order or Ministry officials, they all told Him the same thing. Dumbledore. Dumbledore had known. But _how_ did he know? Nobody could tell Him because nobody knew. Dumbledore was keeping a secret.

The Most Powerful Wizard was stymied. He was bloody enraged. He had felt so...powerless. He became unhinged by it for a while there, everyone could see it. Those were dark days. He had grown so paranoid. It was as though Dumbledore had fastened an unseen ghost to His side that was watching and listening to Him everywhere He went. It must have been some kind of magic He didn't know about, but He couldn't see how. There was no magic that He didn't know about. Certainly not something this powerful. He had searched the world over, more than once, gathering books, powerful objects, spells, and arcanna - everything that mattered in life.

The pinnacle of it had been His house. No one in the world knew that He had His own home. It wasn't grand, like the Malfoys and the Lestranges, but that wasn't what it was meant to be. It was just a little place that He had magically erected for Himself, out the in wilderness. It was located in one of the most isolated places in the whole country and He had put in place every piece of protection that He knew. It was a stronghold. A place for Him to eat and sleep and every other weak human thing that He detested to do, but had to anyway. He utterly loathed sleeping. It was so much like death to Him. He was unconscious, vulnerable, and...resting. The opposite of doing. How anybody could stand it was beyond Him.

One day, after another failed undertaking, He had decided to go home and gather His strength. He always approached the house from the south. He could have just flown in, but sometimes stretching His legs felt good. Suddenly He could feel it, a minute, whisper of a thing. A foreign spell. It's origins were untraceable but He knew it wasn't one of His own. Someone had been there while He was gone. He transformed his body into vapor and began circling the dome of enchantments, probing, prodding, discovering. He found more little detection spells. His only consolation, and it was also the most unnerving thing about it, was that, whoever it had been, they hadn't tried to penetrate any of the barriers. Had some nosy wizard just happened to stumble upon His house and decided to make a quick once-over? It hardly seemed likely. It had taken Him ages to settle down for rest that night; it was a violation unlike any other.

Now He turned to Scabior.

"Did he tell you?"

Scabior shook his head. "'E wouldn't say, my Lord. I tortured 'im a little. But 'e just kept sayin' 'ow I wouldn' believe 'im, and 'e wan'ed you and a truth potion. I wouldn' 'ave bothered you with it, my Lord, but if 'e do turn out to be makin' with the shiny lights, I'll be sure 'e gets it good."

"You did the right thing, Scabior," The Most Powerful Wizard offered.

He could practically see relief oozing out his pores. "'Is name's Mundungus Fletcher, Master, and 'e 'as been known in certain circles to be connected with the Order."

"Go ahead and get him up," The Greatest Wizard instructed, getting to His own feet.

Scabior followed suit, setting down his wine and standing up in front of the captive. He used his wand to untie him and then he cast a spell to wake him.

The grubby little man lay there blinking for a bit, getting his bearings, and then made to stand up. The Greatest Wizard performed a little charm to keep him bent at the knee.

"That's as far up you need to go," He chided.

"Yes, sir," he grumbled.

"Well, I understand there is something you would like to share with me."

The tubby thief rubbed a dirty hand over his face and looked up at the Dark Lord, his eyes widening a little in shock. Every one who looked at him the first time seemed surprised, as though the rumors about His face were unbelievable.

"I hear you were fingering my property," He said, wanting to toy with him a little.

"I didn' know, sir. We wouldn' never touched it, Your Lordship, if we'd a known it was your b'longings, I swears it."

"The penalty is death. Did you know that?"

By this time the grungy little pick-pocket was trembling and sweating. Disgusting.

"Please, sir, spare me, an' I can tells you somethin'," he importuned in a timorous voice.

The Greatest Wizard smiled. He loved it when people were foolish enough to rely on words. It was absolutely delightful the way scared people seemed to forget the existence of lying.

"If you do offer me something valuable I can certainly agree to spare your life, however, you'll have to convince me," The Most Powerful Wizard warned him.

"You-you wouldn' believe it."

"If I won't believe it then why are you here?" He inquired, his voice getting a bit higher as his patience wore thin.

"It's the truth." And, seeming to decide he had better just get on with it, he began, "It were abou' a year and half ago. It were righ' before Chris'mas and I was jus' released from Azkaban. Got caugh' in a bad job, see. "

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

 **The Thief's Tale:**

15 November, 1996

Dung was in London. He had been released from Azkaban a few days before and had gone to visit his cousin to see if he knew about any good jobs. They'd supped and talked and had a jolly good time. Afterwards, he hadn't wanted to go home. When he was alone he was haunted by the images of his time with the dementors, so instead, he headed toward a pub that he knew a few streets down.

It was a dark evening, cold and damp too. He noticed someone walking down the street in front of him. He would recognize the back of that man anywhere - he'd known Dumbledore for years. He almost called out to him, but for some reason he didn't. Instead he had followed him. He was a bit put out with Dumbledore, truth be told. Dung had thought that Dumbledore would try to help him get out of going to prison again, the way he had before. But he wasn't trying to spy on him, not really. He was just curious. Dumbledore was dressed like a Muggle.

After a bit Dumbledore turned in the gate at a narrow two-story house. Dung saw that the house had been sectioned off to create four seperate flats, two downstairs and two upstairs. Dumbledore headed for the left downstairs flat and, once at the door, he pulled out a key and let himself in. Dung couldn't have said why he was doing it, but it was all so...odd. The way Dumbledore was dressed and using a key, instead of magic, to unlock the door. So Dung decided to take a peek around the house, just to see what he could see. He pulled out his wand and cast a disillusionment charm over himself, then crept soft-footed toward the back of the house, keeping to the deep shadows created by a gently lit window.

Sure enough, Dumbledore was in there. He was with a little girl. Dung looked around and saw what looked like a bedroom. He could see the girl and Dumbledore sitting in two chairs, facing each other, talking. There was a little table beside Dumbledore and it was holding all sorts of bottles. Big ones, little ones, and they were different colors. As Dung watched Dumbledore took a bottle, poured some of its brown liquid into a glass and then handed it to the girl. She drank it and then Dumbledore made a note with a quill and parchment. He picked up a different bottle and poured something green into the same glass, handed it to her, watched her drink it and then wrote something down. It was a strange tableau.

Dung used his wand to open the window, just a sliver, and then snaked a clever little invention called an 'Extendable Ear' into the room so he could hear what they were saying.

"How are you getting along with Mrs. Carrington?" Dumbledore asked the girl as he handed her the glass again. This time it was pink.

She downed it one gulp and shrugged. "Alrigh'. She mos'ly leaves me 'lone."

They were quiet for a moment and then gesturing toward the table she asked, "This all ya got?"

"Yes. But I also have some new spells to try, if you don't mind."

She shrugged again.

"Did you manage to slip away last night?" Dumbledore asked.

She nodded.

The girl was dark-skinned, with short, frizzy, black hair, bushy eyebrows, puffy red lips, and thick spectacles. Dung thought that she looked about ten years old; maybe eleven.

"Well?" Dumbledore prompted.

She took another glassful from him, this time it was blue, drank it down and said, "'E wen' to Lestranges." She handed him back the glass before continuing. "They was all there. 'E talked to Dolohov 'bout 'ow 'e was plannin' to get the Wakefields up to scratch. Dolohov didn' seem to know. So 'e tortured 'im for a bit. Then 'e wanted to know who Runcorn found for the Scrimgeour job."

When she started speaking, Dung noticed she had shiny little squares of...was it metal?...across her teeth.

"And what did Runcorn say?" Dumbledore asked.

"Tha' 'e thought Yaxley'd be bes' for it."

"Yaxley," Dumbledore repeated. His head was bent down over his parchment and he was writing something for a bit.

Looking bored, the girl took a small metal box off the dresser beside her chair and pointed it to a corner of the room Dung couldn't see. Suddenly, loud fastly-paced music was filling the room.

"Do you mind, Jane? I'm trying to focus," Dumbledore said.

She pointed the little box again, the music went off, and she set it back down on the dresser. She crossed her arms and slumped down in her chair a little.

Finally, Dumbledore stopped writing, waved his wand over the table and all of the bottles disappeared.

Then he pointed his wand at the little girl, Jane.

"Is that all you saw?" Dumbledore asked. Dung couldn't have been more surprised as he watched Dumbledore wave his wand at her. A soft purple light shot out of the end of it and hit the girl right in her chest. He had no idea what spell it was, but it must have been harmless. She didn't bat a lash.

While Dumbledore continued to cast different colored spells at her, stopping now and then to take down more notes, the girl started talking again.

"I stayed ou' abou' two hours. They wen' over some o' the same stuff, really. 'E wan'ed to know 'oo they fought migh' be spillin' secrets to you an' the Ministry. Weren' no new ideas 'bout it. 'E says fer a while abou' a bill bein' passed by the Ministry for lettin' Muggle-borns get more jobs. Then 'e's sayin' abou' the Daily Prophet's new angle. 'Ow they's goin' round sayin' Muggles is good as gol'. 'E didn' like a story bout this Muggle man 'oo saved this little witch 'oo were drownin'."

He cast a spell that shot off a jet of dark blue light at her chest. She giggled.

Dumbledore smiled at her. "Did that one tickle?"

She nodded.

He bent over his parchment again. "What else?"

"Well, then 'e ask MacNair bout some bus'ness wif the giants."

Dumbledore stopped mid-spell, lowered his wand and looked at her hard. "What did he say?"

"'E says the Gurg 'greed to 'is terms."

Dumbledore didn't say anything for a moment. Then he nodded and bent over the parchment again.

"You ain' sprised," she stated.

"No, not surprised," he calmly agreed, "just disappointed."

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Any other items on Voldemort's agenda?"

"Uh...," she brought a thin finger to her chin for a moment, "'E brough' up Junior, again."

"Yes, I imagine he's getting quite desperate to get rid of me once and for all. Anything else, Jane?"

She shook her head.

"Are you positive?" he prodded.

She gave him a long hard look.

"Sorry, my dear."

They sat in silence for a bit while he cast more spells at her and made more notes on his paper. After a few minutes he rolled it up and magicked it away. Then he focused on her.

"How's school?"

She shrugged. "'S'okay. You?"

Dumbledore conjured up a tray with some tea and biscuits, then set down his wand. Jane immediately began to pour some tea for them.

"Hogwarts is quite well. Thank you for asking."

Dung was shivering with cold. He listened to them chatting about Jane's life and her little girl problems for a few more minutes and he decided he'd heard enough. He needed a drink, and he needed a think.

What in the name of Merlin's saggy left nut was that?

~x~}{~x~

"You expect me to believe this?" The Most Powerful Wizard asked the man on the floor. He hadn't detected any sense of falsehood while he spoke but it was the most preposterous story He had ever heard.

"Damn," he mumbled to himself, "Forgot to ask for the truth potion."

"Stand up," He commanded.

The little man got laboriously to his feet and The Dark Lord leaned over him and dived into his mind.


	3. Present Incarnate

**Posted:** 11/22/2015

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Present Incarnate**

 **4th June, 1998**

"Oh, my- Is it-? It's _urinating_!" Narcissa exclaimed.

"Holy Hecate!" Bellatrix snorted. "That's disgusting."

"Guess she 'as been tied up a while," Scabior said, giving the girl who was bound and gagged on the thick ornate rug a cursory glance. Bellatrix, Lucius, and Narcissa were glaring curses at him, but he could not care less. He shrugged aloofly and then once more disappeared behind the _Daily Prophet_ in his hands.

"You don't have to stay," Lucius said, hoping he would leave.

"Yeah, I do," he told them from behind his paper.

"We're perfectly capable of guarding this-this...whatever it is," Lucius tried again.

"Like Potter? I can't leave 'er 'ere with you incompetent lot. One of yer old 'ouse-elves liable to drop in and nick 'er right out from under yer noses." After he'd done saying this, Scabior began to laugh wheezily and lightly slap his knee.

The Malfoys and Bellatrix all went rather red in the face, but held their tongues.

After a few moments, Narcissa couldn't help but ask, "Can you not move it to the cellar? Only this carpet has been in our family for generations."

"Nope. I told you to call the Dark Lord a 'alf hour ago. Now, you can do tha', or we'll just 'ave ta wait till 'e gets 'ere."

"For _this_! If we call him for this, he'll eviscerate us," Bellatrix sneered, eyeing the body on the floor like it might be a disease.

"'E wanted 'er yesterday," he told them. "And 'e _ent'_ gonna be 'appy she's late."

"What in the hell is it?" Bellatrix asked.

"A present," Scabior replied cryptically.

"I highly doubt he'll consider anything this pathetic a 'present'," Bellatrix said.

"Shoulda seen wha' I brough' 'im a few weeks back," he retorted with an irritating chuckle.

The Malfoys were highly confused about the child. It was a _child_. They couldn't begin to fathom why the Dark Lord would want it. It was dark-skinned and wearing trousers for one thing, and for another thing it was...well, it was a _child_. They would have gladly retreated back to the third floor of the east wing - the farthest part of the manor from where the Dark Lord usually conducted his business - but they didn't want to leave Scabior alone. Everyone knew he had sticky fingers.

He kept insisting they should call the Dark Lord, but they could not justify it. Not for this...whatever it was supposed to be. The Dark Lord didn't seem quite as angry with them of late, and they did not want to do anything rash in case they aroused his ire again. Scabior was acting as though It was important to their master, though he wouldn't tell them _how_ , and without a full disclosure they could not see why they should put their pure-blood necks on the line for the degenerate likes of him.

Draco walked into the room and, looking at the figure with a slightly sickened expression, asked, "Is that dead?"

"No," answered Bellatrix. "If you watch it for a while you'll notice that it's breathing." Then she added in an offhand manner, "And crying."

"And it just relieved itself on the rug," Narcissa supplied pulling her cup of tea to her thin disapproving mouth for a delicate sip. "Would you like some tea, dear?"

Draco shook his head and sat beside Father. He kept looking at the little thing in spite of himself. Its eyes were closed and it was perfectly still, save the gentle rise and fall of its chest. He could see that tears and snot had made shiny trails down one side of its face. Draco thought it was female, though he couldn't be positive. It was wearing a voluminous shirt, almost like a short, loose robe, so the shape of its figure was masked.

"What is it?" he finally asked.

"A present for the Dark Lord, boy," Scabior told him.

"Don't call him boy," Lucius commanded.

"Why not?" Scabior asked.

"Because I said so," Lucius replied, his voice ringing with authority.

Scabior slowly lowered his paper and in one languid movement pulled out his wand.

"And what exactly are ya gonna do 'bout it, _Lucius?_ " he taunted.

Lucius wearily, longingly, appraised the wand and didn't answer.

Bella's face was red, but she also refrained from retaliating. She narrowed her eyes, leaned back on the sofa, and began to make a mental list of the curses she could use on him, had she her own wand. She spent a lot of time these days making lists. Lists of what spells she would cast as soon as she got another wand, and lists of the people she would hurt once she got her hands on it. So far, Scabior was at the bottom.

As though he couldn't resist rubbing their faces in it, Scabior used his wand to summon a chocolate biscuit off a silver platter that rested on a spindle-legged, inlaid table and he began to eat it.

Through a mouthful he said, "Some of the other Death Eaters are sayin' you lot are pretty damn worthless, but I know better. Ya got a good spread 'ere." He winked at Lucius.

He noticed their faces grow pink and smiled a little to himself. _Good_ , he thought. _Bleedin' snobs._ They had always treated him like dirt, and he was delighted by their recent fall from grace. Everyone was.

Bellatrix silently moved him up one of her lists.

Narcissa contemplated pulling out her wand, but the impulse was a weak one and short-lived. She was fairly certain that she was more than a match for Scabior, but she really felt that wasn't the point. He was here on an assignment for their master, and she and her family were meant to be in disgrace. The torture and beatings, the protracted state of her family being wandless, and suffering the insults of their colleagues - even the ones whose blood-lines weren't nearly as pristine as their own - all of these different aspects came to together to create a diverse package of punishment. It wasn't as though it could last forever, so Narcissa kept her peace.

After all, The Dark Lord didn't want to kill them. He wanted to preserve as much magical blood as possible. As her husband and son had already pledged their lives to him, let him mark them, he had to consider their intrinsic value when dealing with them. Unlike many of the people who were currently in his service, they could trace their ancestry over centuries. They were perfect representations of every standard he held. Simply put, they were ideal.

The Dark Lord's voice sounded from the door outside the parlour where they were waiting. Scabior immediately dropped his paper and sprang to his feet. The others rose as well; Bellatrix patted her hair a little, nervously, and they all faced the door.

When he entered the room he turned his face to Scabior and the child at his feet first, smiling. He merely glanced at the rest of them, barely deigning to acknowledge them. He brought his pale long-fingered hands together and gently rubbed them together with relish.

Although he was still smiling his first impulse was to rebuke, "You are late, Scabior."

Scabior immediately fell to one knee. "My sincerest 'poligies, Master. We 'ad ta...rearrange our plans, so to speak. We 'ad to bring her in a van."

"A _van?_ " the Dark Lord repeated. "Why didn't you just use side-along Apparation?"

"We tried, my Lord, but it wouldna work."

"What do you mean it would not work?"

"We all tried to Apparate with 'er, my Lord. Firs' me, then Puffer, and Greyback. None of us could do it. Finally we Imperio'd a muggle with a van and 'ad 'im drive us down 'ere. I'm sorry, Master. We got 'er 'ere soon's we could. Then I told the _Malfoys_ 'ere to call you but they wouldna listen to _me_."

The Dark Lord briefly flicked his eyes toward them but didn't say anything. They all sighed in relief.

Those morons couldn't even get her here properly. He should have fetched her himself.

"Well, she's here at last," he replied.

He was in an excellent mood.

After rummaging through the thoughts of that scummy little thief, and then swiftly ending his life, he could only conclude that this little creature, Jane, could at last shed some light on a problem that had been nagging at him for quite a while: the mystery of how Dumbledore had seemed to divine his every move. He did not have a complete picture yet. Were the potions she was drinking and the spells he was casting at her somehow giving her the power to spy on him? And, if so, why would he use someone so young and stupid to spy? Why not himself, or at least someone older? And what had Dumbledore meant when he asked her if she had slipped away? Slipped away. He had repeated it to himself a quite a few times but couldn't draw any meaning from it.

It had been easy enough for him to track her down, almost ridiculously so. Cloaked by the darkness of night, he had gone to that narrow brick house of the thief's memory and used Legilimancy on two sets of neighbors. The people on the opposite side had only taken up residence of couple of months ago and hadn't a clue who he was looking for. After disposing of them, and their runny-nosed brat that wouldn't stop wailing the whole time, he had tried the neighbors upstairs. It was an older couple, and their minds were well acquainted with the child Jane, her caretaker Mrs. Carrington, and they had even seen Dumbledore coming and going many times. The woman, Mrs. Carrington, had moved to Canada a year ago to be closer to her daughter, and Jane had gone to a girl's home for disadvantaged youth. From that point he had to track down this charitable institution where she was living and that had not presented a challenge either. Oh, Dumbledore had been quite remiss in protecting his little charge. More likely he had just been arrogant enough to assume that her existence would never be discovered. The _fool_!

He was quite eager to question her. But he needed to be careful. He was loath to appear as though he didn't already know everything. He had considered torturing her and, if it came to that, he would not hesitate. But he decided to begin with some Veritaserum because it would not be prudent to start damaging her without all of his facts first.

"Get her up and untied," he commanded Scabior.

Scabior did as he was told. He used his wand to untie her ropes, took off the gag and then tried to pull her into a standing position. The little girl did not seem able to stay standing, although she appeared to be trying. Growing impatient the Dark Lord told him to set her down in a chair.

He pulled a chair up to sit across from her, and examined her.

She was just as odd looking in person as she had been in memory. The first thing he noted was a light blue bruise over the dark skin of her cheek. She wasn't brown exactly, more olive-toned like a person of Persian of descent. Perhaps she was a mixture of some sort. Her hair was bright black, short, cropped on top, and the curly texture didn't allow it to lie flat and smooth but rather made it frizz out. Her eyes were some odd, bluish green color and their shape was distorted and magnified by the thick, black-framed spectacles she wore. Her face was quite hairy. Her black eyebrows were bushy and came so close together across her brow that there was no real distinction between them. And on the skin above each side of her upper lip more black hair gave the impression of a thin mustache. Her lips were huge - puffy and as deeply red as a pot of poinsettias. Her upper lip was so full that it was shaped in a high arch. The last things he noticed were her straight nose and the small cleft in her chin. Judging by the fullness of her cheeks, the flatness of her chest, and the straight lines of her figure he would guess her age to be somewhere around eleven.

She sat there calmly while he took in her appearance. She rubbed some tears off of her face and her little hands trembled, but other than that she just waited, staring around the room, while he assessed her. In fact, he didn't think she seemed very surprised or traumatized to find herself in his company. She was either very brave or very stupid. As she was a Muggle, the Dark Lord assumed he could guess which it was.

Once he finished looking her over, the Dark Lord stood up and addressed Scabior. "She has a bruise," he accused. He had given the chief Snatcher _very_ specific instructions about how he wanted her to be handled.

"Tha's Greyback's doin', tha' is. It were all fine, till he decided to start gropin' on 'er chest in the van. Then she goes all wild and start kickin' and bitin' us all, so me and Puffer, we threw 'im out the back and we 'ad to tie 'er up. Till then she were as calm as a flobberworm with a belly full of lettuce."

The Dark Lord pointed his wand at Scabior and tortured him for a few minutes. Why was everybody always making excuses? He noted, with pleasure, that the child clenched her eyes closed, muffled her ears with her hands, and hunched her shoulders up protectively. After he was finished, he conjured up a fat bag of coins and dismissed him.

Once the snatcher had taken his reward and departed, the Dark Lord prepared a cup of tea for Jane. He kept his back to her while he added the cream and sugar, but Bellatrix and the Malfoys had a clear view of him as he added a couple drops of the clear potion to her drink. When he was done he gave it her.

She examined the drink for moment.

 _She knows_ , he thought.

Wisely she brought it to her lips and they watched as she blew on it for a moment, and then gulped down the whole cup in about four large swallows.

"Fanks," she mumbled as she set the cup down on the table next to her chair. Her voice was more low-pitched than he would have guessed for her age and sex.

He sat down again and looked at her in silence for some moments, waiting for the Veritaserum to take total affect.

"Tell me your name."

"Jane Wellington," she said. She kept her eyes trained on the window.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"I want to know how you met Dumbledore."

She took a deep breath and let it out. She was silent a moment before she answered.

"I's were in a 'ome. It were...no good. So I's find 'im, Dumbledore, and asks 'im to 'elp me."

"What do you mean you found him?"

"Well, I's...I's be knowed where 'e's were playin' tenpin every Saturday, yeah? So, it were at a place close by where I's lives then. So I's just takin' the tube there one day. I's waited for 'im outside an' then I goes up to 'im an' I says, 'Oy, Mr. Dumbledore. I's needs to speaks wif you.' 'E were right polite, yeah? 'E's jus' listenin while I's be tellin' 'im all bout my bad 'ome an' 'ow I's found out bout 'im. 'E's asks me where I's livin' and then 'e says 'e needs to fink about it. So I just wen' 'ome that day." She gave a heavy sigh. "I's waited an' waited, an' then a few weeks later 'e's comes up one evenin'. 'E's say 'e'll be 'elpin'. So, that's 'ow we started."

The Dark Lord was quiet a moment, processing what she'd said.

"Tell me how you 'found out about him'.

"Well, I's were out one day, yeah? I's used to be jus' doin' tha' when I's were bored like. I likes to just slip away, yeah?"

"No. What does that mean? 'Slip away'?"

"It wha' I's be call it."

"What is _it_?"

"Slippin' away."

"But what is _slipping away_? What does that _mean_?"

"It be wha' I's _do_. It why I's beed 'ere ent it? You knows wha' I's be doin' fer Dumbledore. Don'chya?"

"You were spying."

"Righ'. Well, I's callin' it slippin' away', yeah?"

"But how did you spy? How do you do it?"

"Oh, well. Is righ' easy, yeah? I's jus' lie down an do it."

"You just lie down? On a bed or-or the floor?"

"No, not tha floor. I's gotta be comferterable."

"So you lie down...on a bed, make yourself comfortable and then what do you do?"

"I's slip away."

"But what does that mean!" It was like trying to decipher a foreign language for Merlin's sake! Was she trying to be so obtuse?

"I's ent be knowed 'ow I's do it. I's jus' always could, yeah?. I's fought I's be dreamin' when I's were little. I's jus'," she looked around the room, as though an explanation might be lurking behind some furniture, "I's just be doin' it. I's gotta be, ya know, 'appy. No, not 'appy, really, jus' not sad or angry like. I's gotta be calm."

The Dark Lord was so confused.

"Well, was Dumbledore giving you the potions and doing the spells to magic you into a calmer state so that you could...do...it?"

Do _what_ exactly? What had she _done_?

For the first time she looked surprised. "You mean you's don' know?"

Damn! He hadn't wanted to come across as ignorant about all of this as he most certainly was. He should have made the Malfoys and Bellatrix leave the room before he started questioning her.

"Know what?"

He was quite shocked when her face crumpled and, for the first time, she began to cry. "I's fought ya knowed!"

"Know what?"

The time for talk was clearly at an end.

The Dark Lord grabbed her by the back of her frizzy head, snatched her glasses off for good measure, and, just as he had done countless times before, made to plunge into her mind.

SMACK!

It felt as though he had tried to ram his brain into something very large and very solid. There was a gong resounding inside his skull, and the vibrations were making his hands shake. He sat back down and looked at her.

"I's be finkin' that ya knowed," she was really starting to blubber now. "I's- I's- I's impervious to magic!"


	4. Impervious

**Posted:** 11/22/2015

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Impervious**

 **4th June, 1998**  
 **2:37 pm**

The Dark Lord's head was spinning and he needed to sit down. Oh yes, it seemed he was already sitting down.

It could not be true. It was absolutely outrageous. He had never heard the like. Why would she lie about something so ridiculous? Then he remembered the Veritaserum he had just watched her consume. He thought about the potions the thief had watched her drinking while Dumbledore took notes; the spells he had been casting at her. Had he been cataloging? The Dark Lord remembered Scabior telling him that none of the Snatchers had been able to Apparate with her. They had actually brought her here in a van. He had simply chalked it up to their ineptitude. But what about the spells he had seen Dumbledore casting at her? What about the Veritaserum?

At a loss for anything else to do, he threw back his head and laughed long and hard. The Malfoys and Bellatrix joined him.

"Jane," he said. "It will not do to make up such stories. I can easily disprove such a pathetic lie."

She didn't respond. She just sat there with her head in her hands and continued to cry.

He stood up, pointed his wand at her, and cried, " _Crucio_!"

The light came out and hit her straight in the head the way he had intended it to, but instead of falling to the floor, writhing in agony, she just started to cry harder.

And then the cheeky little brat actually had the audacity to mumble, "I's sorry."

The Malfoys and Bellatrix were completely quiet through this. They were watching the scene evolving before them in stunned disbelief.

The Dark Lord looked down and realized he was still pointing his wand at her and the spell was still pouring into her. It was as though it was simply passing through her. _Was_ it passing through her? He leaned over to see if the light was coming out from behind her, but he couldn't tell from his angle.

He looked down at his wand again and lifted the spell.

He turned to Narcissa.

"Give me your wand," he commanded.

She immediately rose, looking dazed, and handed it to him. He turned to the girl and tried to Crucio her with it. The exact same thing happened. The spell came out all blue and shiny and pretty and completely impotent.

Was she a Muggle?

"Are you a witch?" he asked her.

Instead of answering she shook her head.

He handed Narcissa back her wand and started to pace around her, thinking.

"Bellatrix!"

She jumped out of her chair as though she had been burned. "Yes, My Lord!"

She came to his side, anticipating his command.

To her surprise he handed her his wand and said, "Cast a spell at her."

With a joy-filled face she immediately pointed the wand at her and yelled, " _Crucio_!"

Nothing.

"Try something else," he said.

" _Silencio_ ," she tried.

This spell was also proved to be ineffectual, as the little mudblood kept right on sobbing, loudly.

"I's sorry," she gasped. "I's fought ya knowed!"

"Quiet," he snapped. "Do not speak to me again unless I ask you a direct question! Do you understand me?"

She nodded.

He was pacing again, thinking again.

What in Merlin's name _was_ she? Could this possibly be true? Could such an abomination actually _exist_? He noticed that Bellatrix and the three Malfoys had all stood up and were staring at her.

His musings were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come in!" he called.

Severus, Yaxley, and Thickness walked into the room. It didn't take but a moment for them to realize something significant was happening. Their master was pacing as though possessed and the Malfoys and Bellatrix were gazing in shock at some funny looking child who was hunched over crying. None of them were willing to disturb the Dark Lord when he was so clearly aggravated, so they moved in closer, but not _too_ close, and waited.

The Dark Lord wasn't sure how to proceed. No experience in his life, no urban legend, nothing in any book he'd ever read had prepared him for such a circumstance as this. This was what Dumbledore had been doing that evening when he had been unknowingly watched by the ex-convict. He had been giving her various potions to drink and trying different spells on her simply to test her with magic. And she had _giggled_ he remembered. One of the spells had _tickled_ her. He wondered which one it had been. That doddering old ass had been studying her. Had Dumbledore been fascinated by her? And how did she spy? When he asked her she had said she didn't know how she did it. He would need to explore that further. In fact, he decided as he looked at her, he would need to invest some extensive consideration before he made any significant decisions regarding her.

Now, the next thing to be decided was how much to tell his servants. Did they need to know that she had spied on him? She had spied on all of them probably. She had made a mockery of them, of him. But that was in the past. She belonged to him now. He could wield her power, bend it, shape it, use it to achieve his own ends. No matter what the freak turned out to be, she undeniably had power. She had certainly managed to keep him on his toes for at least a year and a half. He thought of Potter. Merlin's beard, was it possible that she could find the wretched boy?

His only misgiving was that, if she truly was impervious to all magic, how could he be completely sure that he was controlling her? She apparently had no family. If she did, she would not have been staying in that home for disadvantaged girls. What about that woman she had lived with, Mrs. Carrington? When Dumbledore asked about her, Jane had told him that she mostly left her alone. It didn't sound as though they were close. Well, he would have to put that aside for the time being. He would come up with a solution. He always did. Besides, she seemed utterly terrified of him so she must have a little intelligence. After all, if she had spied on him, and she admitted that she had, she would know perfectly well what he was capable of doing to those who stood in his way.

How many spells had Dumbledore tried on her? He had to admit that Dumbledore had been a very clever wizard, so he had no doubt tried hundreds, if not more. Had he ever tried the Cruciatus Curse on her? The Dark Lord thought not. Whatever Dumbledore did he was always honorable about it. He would not have given her any poisons to drink either. But the Dark Lord had to know. He had to push the boundaries as far as he could; this had always been his way.

"Narcissa, Lucius, Bellatrix," he began, "I want you to bring me every potion you have in this mansion. Every one. And bring some of your darkest objects as well."

"Yes, My Lord," they said. Bellatrix looked as though Christmas had come early.

Then he turned to Severus. "What potions are you carrying? Set anything you have there," he commanded pointing to the largest table in the room.

And so it began. Everything he had planned to do that day was postponed. Within an hour he had all of his Death Eaters gathered and helping him test different types of magic on the little girl. He had instructed Narcissa and Draco sit at a table to the side and write notes on the proceedings.

First he cleared the furniture to the side of the room and had her stand in the middle of it. Then he positioned different people around her and told them to cast spells at her simultaneously. This only served to make her sneeze several times, so apparently when she was inundated with copious amounts of magic it tickled her nose. Next he decided to queue them up in front of her and told them to take turns casting whatever curses they'd like, in turn. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Lucius had a plethora of dark objects for them to play with. He had her gaze into a mirror that should have driven her instantly insane. Nothing. He commanded her to handle an entire set of cursed cutlery. Nothing. He had her comb her hair with a brush that should have caused all of it to fall out and make her hands break out in painful boils. Nothing. He sprinkled her with sleeping powder. Nothing. He told her to look inside a book that would have burned out anybody else's eyes. _Nothing_.

It was all turning out to be fascinating to him. And worrisome as well. Were there others in the world like her, or was she one of a kind? He asked her if she had any family and she told him no, that she had been abandoned at an orphanage when she was a baby. That was an eerie coincidence. If she ever had children would they be impervious to magic as well? Food for thought.

His Death Eaters did not know what to make of her either. It was quickly known among them that she was the spy who had been helping Dumbledore track them down and foil their plans. A _Muggle_? A _child_? And as it turned out, a _cripple_.

He had not known at first, because of her trousers, but when a couple of spells ripped her clothes she started squawking about her leg.

"Please don' 'urt my leg!" she had whined.

"Is one of your legs not impervious to magic, child?"

"It ent beed a real one, yeah? Yer spells migh' break it."

"Show me."

Her face flushed but she immediately complied. "It be 'ow Dumbledore really knows I's impervious to magic," she told him while she rolled up the right side of her trousers, unlaced her boot, and showed him a prosthetic limb. "'E wan'ed to 'elp me by 'ealin it. I gots so 'appy. But 'is spells ent doin' nuffink. So thats 'ow 'e be figurin' it."

"How interesting," he had replied sarcastically. "Now take it off." His Death Eaters had chimed in with their sycophantic guffaws.

He watched with pleasure as her face turned red. She needed a good dose of humiliation. He and his minions needed it as well. A _cripple_? It was like salt in the wound that was her sorry existence. In fact, everything about her was a slap in his face. She was so young and helpless. She was a Muggle, a cripple, and it was as clear to him as the color of her skin that at least one of her parents had been a _foreigner_. Her grammar was nonexistent, and she clearly wasn't very bright. This was the spy who had shadowed him for a year and a half?

"In fact, I have been meaning to ask you something," he said, his face alight with an evil grin. "Have you ever seen any of my servants while they were sleeping?"

She nodded.

"Have you watched them eating?"

She nodded again.

"Have you ever seen them using the lavatory?"

Her face got redder and she lowered her head.

"Answer the question!"

It was almost imperceptible, but she nodded again. A collective gasp of indignation filled the room.

"You have seen them doing every private thing, have you not?"

He included himself; not out loud, but he was thinking it. She had probably seen him bathing, eating, sleeping, all the things he hated for people to think that he did. And _she_ had seen it. His nostrils were such small slits that he couldn't breathe through them very well. Whenever he awoke his pillow was soaked with drool. It was an infuriating thought.

She was crying again.

"Have you ever watched them while they had sex?"

She didn't say anything.

"Answer me!"

"I's ent be watchin'!"

"But you did see them, did you not?"

She nodded.

"Rowle, Malfoy, take off her clothes."

"No, please! I's sorry! I's sorry! I's ent be watchin'!"

Thorfinn and Lucius exchanged bemused looks for a moment.

"Do not make me tell you again," The Dark Lord said, having to raise his voice to be heard over Jane's pointless calls for mercy.

Rowle looked at Lucius, shrugged, grinned, and headed for Jane. Reluctantly, his lip curled in disgust, Lucius joined him. She kicked and screamed, she struggled and pleaded. She even bit Rowle on the arm. But after taking turns holding her down, they finally succeeded in undressing her.

Lucius was loath to touch her. Although the urine he had seen saturating her clothes several hours before had dried by this time, her trousers still reeked of it. But even if he knew she'd just stepped out of the bath he still wouldn't have touched her willingly. For the sake of Merlin, she was a mudblood.

Most of the Death Eaters watched this impromptu show with unrestrained glee, laughing and mocking her pitiful pleas. Severus watched, but didn't seem amused. Draco and Narcissa kept their eyes on the table where they sat in the corner.

On the piece of parchment in front of her, Narcissa wrote, _Make Lucius wash his hands as soon as possible_.

Once stripped, Jane sat on the floor writhing her legs, real and otherwise, trying to find the best position to cover her nudity. She wrapped her arms over her chest, was red-faced, sweating from her futile exertions, and sobbing; the embarrassment of her fake leg had clearly been forgotten.

"Come, child. What did you expect me to do? Give you a biscuit and a pat on the head?" Cruel laughter filled the room. "This is only fair. Tit for tat, and all of that."

On his parchment, Draco wrote, _No biscuits or pats on the head for naughty mudblood_ s.

The Dark Lord walked around her slowly, looking, reveling in her anguish.

"I do not see what you are trying to cover up." More laughter. "There is not much, you know."

A smattering of pubic hair and two diminutive nubs. Hardly a curve to be seen.

"You have more hair on your face." The hilarity peaked.

He did not need magic to punish her. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he felt inclined to rise to this challenge. He would have to be creative in order to deal with this abhorrent waif.

"Go sit in the chair."

"Please, gives 'em back!" she sobbed helplessly.

She needed an obedience lesson.

"Macnair!"

The large man stepped up eagerly.

"Slap her."

In retrospect, he should have been more explicit. Macnair leaned over and practically punched off her head. It seemed that her entire bare body flew off the floor and she collapsed, gasping in a heap.

" _Crucio_!" The Dark Lord directed his heat at the incompetent man.

Once his anger was spent, he said, "I told you to slap her, you _moron_ , not incapacitate her. She is not to be irrevocably damaged. By any of you," he told his servants, casting his red eyes around the room, making sure to sweep them all up in this edict. "You are angry. I understand. I am angry as well.

"Her existence is...shameful, yes...and unprecedented. She is a freak of nature and she has wronged us. But no one is to hurt her without _my_ _permission_ , and anybody who dares to defy me will suffer the consequences. I am making plans for her. Mudblood she may be, but she is going to become an asset to our cause. Or die," he added for her benefit.

He turned his attention back to the subject of his little speech and examined her. Her eyes were half closed and she was breathing hard. She didn't appear to be bleeding. The side of her face that had received the blunt of the blow was red. Now what was he supposed to do?

"Severus," he said wearily. "Do something."

"Yes, my lord," Severus obediently replied, going to her side and kneeling as he spoke.

He gently took one of her dark wrists into his pale hands and placed two of fingers over her pulse, waited, counted, and released it. He drew up an eyelid, inspected her cornea, and then he began to carefully probe the back of her head. She seemed to revive some during these tender ministrations and the Dark Lord breathed an inward sigh of relief. He would have to be more careful in the future.

Severus stood up and, handling her carefully, helped Jane into the chair. With his wand he conjured some chunks of ice and wrapped them up in a handkerchief that he took out of his pocket. The Dark Lord watched as he softly pressed the cold compress to the side of her face.

"She's fine. Right?" he asked hesitantly.

"I believe a good night's rest is in order, my lord. Some fluids and food would not go amiss either. When was the last time she ate?"

When _was_ the last time she had eaten?

Perhaps Severus was right. It was getting late and it wasn't as though she was going anywhere. She was his now, after all. But where should she sleep? Initially he had planned to lock her in the cellar, but as he looked at her, skinny, naked, trying to hold the ice to her face and cover her nudity at he same time, he was impressed by her fragility.

He told his Death Eaters that he no longer required their presence and, one by one, they Disapparated.

He took Lucius and Narcissa into the foyer to give them his instructions.

"Take her upstairs and give her one of your rooms." He could tell by their faces they had not anticipated this. "Keep her close and make sure she is...comfortable. I want her well fed and rested. Give her a bath and something clean to wear. Get rid of that filthy Muggle attire. I shall be back tomorrow.

"Heed my words, you are not simply guarding her, you are going to protect her. If she is in any way harmed, if she escapes, I will make the punishments you have received since Potter got away feel like paradise. Do not fail me _again_. Have I made myself clear?"

They both mumbled, "Yes, my lord."


	5. It

**Posted:** 11/23/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **It**

 **4** **th** **June, 1998  
9:53 pm**

Lucius was feeling undone. The events of the day had shaken the foundations of his world in ways he would never have imagined possible.

He was nursing another stiff drink and Narcissa was supervising the mudblood while It ate some dinner. He knew he should go to his wife. She deserved this less than he did but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He simply couldn't face up to the picture of that dirty interloper sitting in his family's manor, putting Its saliva on his cutlery, washing Its filth down his drains. He couldn't reconcile himself to the fact that a mudblood would sleep wrapped comfortably up in _his_ linens, polluting the air with Its breath – and doing it all in a room unbearably close to his own. Twisted, that was how he viewed this situation. Perverse.

When he first saw Scabior come into the parlour with that child, bound and draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, he had simply been bewildered. It was odd - but not _that_ odd. The Dark Lord was a very clever man, as was widely known, but his intelligence made him a bit eccentric. Who could understand how his mind worked? Certainly not Lucius. He could readily admit that, while he himself possessed an abundant amount of intelligence, he was no where near as gifted as a wizard like the Dark Lord. So even if he could not begin to fathom what the Dark Lord might want with It, he knew It must have some significance.

As it began to unfold, as it was revealed that It had some power that allowed It to spy, but even worse, as he had watched It prove to be immune to _magic_ , he thought he was going to be sick. How could something this obscene be allowed to exist? He kept waiting for the Dark Lord to order Bellatrix or Macnair to take It into the woods behind the manor and slit Its throat. That's what he would have done. To his utmost horror he realized that his master was so intrigued by the abominable creature that he not only was planning on making It into a pet, but that he also expected Lucius and his family to take care of It for him. He wanted them to give It a bed and a bath. 'Keep her close', he had instructed.

 _Why_? Why, in the name of all that was pure and magical, was this happening to _him_? He had always been a good person. He had dedicated himself, completely, fully, unrestrainedly to preserving the Pure-blood ideologies upheld for generations of noble Malfoys. He worshipped his ancestry, he obeyed his parents, he could not have made a more respectable marriage, and he did everything in his power to preserve the traditions of his inheritance. Why was it not enough? While it was true that England was at last heading in the proper direction, especially since the Dark Lord had finally come into full control, his personal life was going to pieces. This should have been a time for happiness, a place in history for celebration. Instead everything was going to Hades and he was powerless to prevent it.

"Lucius, I need to go to the attic and see if I can find some clothes for It," Narcissa told him, startling him out of his dark thoughts so that he slopped his drink.

Narcissa had pinned her long blonde hair into a neat bun and Lucius watched as she wrapped a sheer, red scarf around her head to stave off dust.

"The attic?" he asked.

"Yes, the attic. We keep those old clothes up there, remember?"

"Old clothes. You mean my _sister's_?" he asked in disbelief.

Narcissa was taking this all so calmly. It was laudable how deftly she seemed to glide through every catastrophe. No matter what fresh horrors she was faced with, Cissa just grew more serene.

"No, I'm going to look through those trunks with your Aunt Zipporah's old garments. We'll need a gown for It to sleep in and something for It to wear when the Dark Lord comes to get It," she explained.

"Comes to get It," he repeated. "You think he'll take It someplace else?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course," she replied confidently. "He can't expect a Muggle to stay here indefinitely. He just couldn't move It anywhere else tonight, as it's so late."

Narcissa was probably right. It made sense, actually. Since It apparently couldn't be apparated, It would have to go by car or train to wherever the Dark Lord would want It to be moved.

"Do you want me to go with you to the attic, to help?"

"No, I want you to help Draco mind It while I find the clothes."

"Where's Bella?"

Cissa finished tying the scarf in place, appraised him for a prolonged moment with her cool blue eyes and finally responded, "Somewhere. I don't know."

Lucius sighed. _Of course._ She, and all of her possessions, were probably in another wing of the house by now, rather than stick it out and help them take care of the Dark Lord's new freak. Well, he could never say it was an exchange he preferred, however his wife's sister was an acromantula in his pillow these days, so...

Before she had sparked the hope that It would be gone by this time tomorrow, Lucius didn't think he could have mustered the strength for such a task. Armed with the idea that the repugnant little pustule soon would be out of their lives, for good with any luck, he drained his glass of firewhisky and headed to the guest bedroom where It was going to sleep.

He opened the door and saw his son sitting on the farthest side of the room from It, and took a seat beside him.

The room, like everything in their house, was a thing of lavish beauty. Its abundant proportions were filled with sumptuous pieces of oak furniture; it was engirded with panels of wainscoting and trimmed with an accompanying frieze; the floors were laid with more planks of oak; and all the rich dark wood had been polished to a high-gloss sheen. Bergeres, plump and silk-clad, lent comfort and elegance to the corners, while round, spindle-legged tables supported three-branched candelabrum that were chased with baroque images of serpents. Heavy picture frames, carved with intricately scalloped edges, were interspersed with solid silver sconces. Every item in the spare bedroom, whether utilitarian or superfluous, was irrefutably exquisite. The frizzy-haired, bespectacled mudblood was the only thing marring the resplendence of the room.

It was sitting at the breakfast table in the corner of the room, wrapped tightly in a blanket, and It was one of the homeliest things Lucius had ever seen. The side of Its face where Macnair had punched It was swollen and turning a dark shade of blue. What were all those shiny things sticking to Its teeth? Was it silver? Perhaps it was some trendy new way Muggles displayed their wealth. Something that ludicrous sounded just about right. Idiots. That would be a painful way to get robbed. Then again, this little waif probably didn't have any wealth, so what purpose could something this unattractive possibly serve? He was flummoxed, and since he doubted he would ever need to know he put it from his mind.

Lucius noticed It seemed to be having some trouble cutting Its food into bite-sized portions. It was clutching at the blanket, desperate to make sure the inadequate covering didn't fall down and expose... _What?_ Lucius wondered. He hadn't seen anything worth seeing when he'd peeled off Its reeking clothes. He was a bit surprised that It seemed so preoccupied with modesty. From an early age he had been taught that Muggles were like animals in this regard. In fact, it was commonly known that many of them bred in front of their children. It, however, didn't seem to want to relinquish a centimeter of wrapping, not even to accommodate a hastier consumption of Its supper. It was clearly ravenous. As soon as It managed to spear a piece small enough for Its metal-filled mouth It devoured the food within seconds, making little groans of pleasure with each morsel, all the while desperately hacking off another bite.

Beside him, Draco gave a heavy sigh and slumped down in his chair and crossed his arms. Draco seemed tired these days. They were all tired in truth, but the change in his son went deeper than a good night's rest. Lucius knew that much. Ever since he had returned from Azkaban his relationship with Draco had been strained. Was Draco disappointed in him? Had he felt abandoned when Lucius went to prison? Embarrassed? And to make everything worse, Draco had taken the Dark Mark. Barely sixteen, and he had had to take on the responsibilities of a man.

He hadn't been able to kill Dumbledore; Lucius wasn't sure what to think about that. He didn't mind; not really. It would have made certain things _easier_ , simpler, if Draco could have done it, but Lucius's approval of him did not hang on the ability to extinguish life. He himself had never killed anybody, not even a Muggle, although he didn't really think that Muggles counted. He probably would at some point; he just had never been in a situation where it was absolutely necessary. He'd tried to convey to his son that he didn't care about Dumbledore. But speaking so openly about things as arbitrary and schmoozy as feelings was not in a Malfoy's nature. All he could do to convey his approval, tacitly, was respect his privacy and try to treat his son like a man.

Draco had certainly tested his father's resolve.

One evening, about a week after the Potter fiasco, Lucius and Narcissa had taken some refreshments to the wrought-iron table in the Nook to enjoy some mild weather. The flowerbeds had been speckled with a few early blooms, the bright colors and gentle perfumes spicing the senses like subtle promises of summer. Lucius used the last rays of the evening sun to read the political commentaries in the Daily Prophet and Narcissa had a brought a bag of giorun seeds, a common ingredient in many of her healing potions, to remove from their hard pods.

Lucius looked up from his paper when he heard the clatter of Draco's boots as he walked across the flagstones to join them. His face was yellowed and blue, a few scrapes on his arms were still slightly oozing, and he was carrying a tumbler full of clear liquid.

"Is that water?" Narcissa had asked.

"Scotch," Draco answered, taking a small sip. "Can I borrow your wand, Mother?"

She handed it to him and, to their astonishment, Draco pulled a pack of Mingo Flubber's Finest Tasting Tobacco out of his pocket and used his mother's wand to light a cigarette.

"Thanks," he said as he gave it back to her, acrid smoke pouring out of his mouth and nose as he spoke. Then he had pulled up a section of the Daily Prophet and proceeded to smoke his cigarette and drink his scotch while he read it.

Lucius had looked at his wife to see what she made of this development. Cissa raised her blonde eyebrows and shifted her slim shoulders upwards, as though to say, "What can we do?"

What _could_ they do? Nothing. Draco was almost eighteen and, sitting next to them battered, bruised, and bleeding, Lucius knew that he was grown now.

Two things about it had really bothered him, though.

First was the fact that Draco was smoking a cigarette. Lucius didn't have a problem with tobacco in and of itself. His own father, may he rest in peace, had often gone to his library to enjoy cigars, but Lucius wasn't fond of the overwhelming stench they emitted. He preferred the sweeter scents of his pipe; not everyday, just on the occasional evening, after a satisfying meal. But cigarettes, lacking the bulk of cigars and the solidity of a pipe, just seemed, in their slender frailty, rather feminine to him. Worse than even that was their ubiquity; everywhere you looked someone had one dangling out of their mouths, which made them _common_. He had said on many occasions to his wife and son that cigarettes, without dignity or distinction, were the worst medium for smoking tobacco. Draco apparently didn't care.

The other thing about it that bothered him was the proficient manner with which he was smoking it. He didn't cough or choke, gripped it deftly between his long, thin fingers, giving the butt a casual tap with his thumb to break off the ashes. Occasionally he released errant wisps of smoke, allowing them to curl upwards where he captured them through his nostrils. Draco noticed his father watching and, as though determined to give him a show, he formed an O with his lips and puffed out some rings. Lucius kept his eyes on the circles until they grew nebulous and then evaporated. It was obvious from the easy, nonchalant way that Draco handled it and his skilled consumption that he was in no way a novice. How long had Draco been smoking? For a while it seemed.

Draco interrupted his musings when he got up and went to the bathroom.

Lucius followed him to the doorway and saw that he was pouring a bath for It, adjusting the hot and cold taps until a suitable temperature was achieved. His mother must have asked him to do it.

"Interesting day," Lucius said, trying to make conversation.

"To say the least," Draco answered, his deep voice echoing off the porcelain and marble surfaces.

"Did you finish _The Hurricane Spell_?" Lucius asked, referring to a novel he had recommended Draco read.

"Almost."

Lucius waited to see if his son would start talking about the book with him. He didn't. He never sought Lucius out anymore, not for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. He sighed a little. His son had used to pester him with endless questions. He asked him questions about everything: magic, school, current events and even peppered Lucius with questions about his childhood. Draco loved to gossip with him. He'd talk about anything he thought might get Lucius's attention. Now Draco would only speak, with brevity, when he answered questions that Lucius asked him. He was the same way with his mother. It wasn't that he was disrespectful to them, just detached, and Lucius could see how much it hurt Narcissa.

"Why don't you add some scented oil and a dash of the Japanese lotus-scented salts," Lucius suggested. "That will help cover Its stench, since I doubt It knows how to wash properly."

With the hint of a smile round the corner of his thin mouth, Draco pulled the expensive bottles of oil and the jar of bath salts from a niche built into the tiles around the bathtub and poured liberal amounts of each into the water until a strong aroma filled the lavatory and the water gyred with spume.

Draco looked at his dad, still smirking, and asked, "That good?"

Laughing a little, he nodded. Then Draco chuckled as well. It sounded nice to Lucius. He hadn't heard his son laughing in ages.

"What's funny?" Cissa asked, walking into the room with a small stack of folded clothes. She had removed the scarf and released her sleek hair again.

 _She really is a beauty_ , Lucius thought to himself, admiring her trim figure encased in a crimson gown. She always took meticulous care with her appearance.

"We were just adding a bit of mudblood de-stencher to Its bathwater, love," Lucius replied.

"Excellent idea," she responded with an amused smile.

The source of their amusement set Its fork down and shuffled toward them uncertainly. Lucius noticed that It did not seem to want to look at any of them, but instead kept looking around the room.

"Did you have enough to eat?" Cissa asked It.

It pulled a blank look and shrugged Its shoulders.

"That was a 'yes' or 'no' question. Would you like some more food?" Cissa tried again.

It shook Its head this time.

Draco came out of the bathroom and took some long strides away from the door, giving It a wide berth. Lucius decided he should do so as well and stepped back a few paces until he was by Draco's side.

Cissa set the pile of clothes on a chair and pulled a long white nightgown from the top. She held it away from herself, letting it unfold so she could get a better estimate of its length.

"Put this on when you are finished washing. It should fit you well enough," she instructed.

It gazed at the nightgown for a few moments, reaching up to scratch Its head in the interim.

"Fanks," It finally replied, and, taking the lacy gown from Cissa, limped into the lavatory.

Once the door closed, Lucius looked at Narcissa and asked her how she thought they should guard It for the night.

"Should one of us stay in here with It, or do you think locking the door will be enough?"

"I don't know Lucius," she told him wearily. "You decide."

"Well, the Dark Lord said we needed to protect It as well as guard It," Lucius reasoned. "If it comes to protecting It, you're the only one with a wand."

He waited for her to reply. When she didn't, he continued, "Do you think he's worried some other Death Eater will try to come back here to hurt It?"

"Maybe," she said uncertainly, clasping her long slender hands in front of her. "It has caused a lot of damage to us, if It was telling Dumbledore the Dark Lord's plans."

"Well, perhaps we should just put some protective charms around the bedroom door and then we can check on It a few times during the night," he suggested.

"That's fine," she agreed. None of them wanted to spend their night in the same room with It. "You should cast the spells though, Lucius."

He accepted that without a second thought. Malfoy men were the ones who were responsible for the spells of guardianship around the manor, so all three of them knew he was the most capable in this area.

"Do you want me to take a turn checking It tonight?" Draco asked. "I can set my alarm for a certain time."

"That would be good. We can each take a turn," Lucius decided. "Draco, you check It around two, I'll come back around four, and Narcissa, you can perform the last one when you wake, around six. Agreed?" he asked, looking back and forth at them. They both nodded their consent to his plan. "Good. That's decided then."

With the plan formed, Lucius headed back to the sitting room for another drink, Draco went to his room, and Narcissa stayed to see It put to bed.

Once Lucius was settled in his chair beside the cold fireplace, sipping a last drink before bedtime, he thought about Draco laughing with him and volunteering to help. He realized that he missed his son. Maybe he should start making more effort with him. _Perhaps_ , he thought, _I'm the one who's withdrawn, not him_. He knew that he was slipping into depression, receding from his family. He was letting them down. But without a wand, what was he? His magic had always been the most distinguishing factor of his existence. Magic superseded his wealth, his bloodline, his nationality, every defining thing that made him Lucius Malfoy. He felt as though he'd lost a limb...more than that, his purpose for living.

Oh, how he'd loved that wand. That wand had been in his family for generations - passed on to each male heir from deathbeds for the last three centuries. It was the greatest gift each Malfoy could bestow on his son. And now, he would never be able to give it to Draco. The thought of this loss made a steely lump form in his throat and his eyes burned. He tried not to think about that wand when he could help it.

These gloomy thoughts occupied his mind until Narcissa came to tell him that It was in bed and he needed to cast the enchantments around the door.


	6. Portrait of an Ex-Headmaster

**Posted:** 11/24/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Portrait of a Headmaster**

 **4** **th** **June, 1998  
9:15 pm**

Severus was fuming.

He walked swiftly through the empty halls of Hogwarts, made his way toward his office on the seventh floor. His head was swirling in a tumultuous cesspool of questions and accusations. He absolutely could not believe what he had just witnessed. A _child_. The magnificent, most honourable Dumbledore was using a child to spy on the Dark Lord. Severus so befuddled with fury and pique that he walked straight past the gargoyles which guarded his door and then had to turn back when he realized his error.

Once he was up the revolving staircase, he practically sprinted to the portrait of his mentor and only confidante. Dumbledore had his head leaned back on the wing chair in which he was painted, dozing, with his mouth and eyes slightly ajar.

"Wake up!"

Dumbledore immediately roused from his slumber, closed his mouth, and sat up looking around in a hazy manner. "Has something happened?"

Severus could only spit two words at him. " _Jane_. _Wellington_."

Dumbledore's eyes widened and he adjusted his position, fidgeting, and he began to rub his left hand over the end of the armrest. "He knows about her?"

"He _has_ her," Severus corrected.

Dumbledore started rubbing his thin fingers across his brow as he contemplated this most unpleasant revelation.

"Is she okay?" was his first question.

"Why the _hell_ -! How _could_ you-! I don't even _know_ -!" Severus was blustering incomprehensibly, too angry for cogency.

"Severus, calm yourself," Dumbledore chided softly.

"She's a child!"

"She is...not everything that she seems, Severus. I assure you," Dumbledore said, attempting to soothe him.

"You are saying that she is not a twelve year old girl? Because she certainly looked like one after the Dark Lord had her _stripped_. _Naked_ ," Severus said, his breath ragged.

Dumbledore's eyes darkened at this.

"Has he hurt her?" Dumbledore asked again. "Or has he restrained himself to humiliating her?"

"Are you saying that she isn't a child?" Severus repeated, refusing to be deterred.

"I am saying...her eyes are open, Severus," he stated simply. "But I need you to help her. Protect her as much as is within your power."

"Oh, that's bloody great," Severus responded, his dark, depthless eyes getting deeper. "Sure, why not? I'm already doing everything I can to protect the students of Hogwarts! And gallivanting around the countryside leaving ancient swords in icy ponds for Potter! And keeping my thoughts secret from the Dark Lord while trying to advise him without giving myself away! Why not just add one more burden to my shoulders, for Christ's sake? I suppose at this point it doesn't matter?

"And, by the way, thanks for telling me about her when I was getting _tortured_ every other day, because the Dark Lord couldn't figure out where you were getting all of your information from, and since I was the closest one to you, he just assumed that _I_ must be spilling his secrets! Do you have any idea how close he came to seeing the truth a- about _her_ , when he was ripping through my thoughts?"

Dumbledore patiently listened to Severus ranting, allowing him to vent his anger.

"That's exactly why I couldn't tell you and you know it," Dumbledore gently reminded him. Then he asked Severus for a third time, "Has Voldemort hurt her?"

Hearing his master's name was as tempering as a swift dip in a glacial pond and, as if it had sapped his anger, Severus deflated slightly, went to his desk, and seated himself in the high-backed chair. He conjured himself some tea and then related the afternoon's events to Dumbledore.

"So he told all the other Death Eaters that she wasn't to be harmed without his permission," he finished.

Dumbledore and Severus sat in silence for moment, each engrossed in their private thoughts.

"Does she know about me?" Severus asked, his eyes on the cup of tea he was slowly stirring.

"She knows where your true allegiances lie, yes. She doesn't know why."

"Can she help the Dark Lord find Potter?" was his next query.

"I doubt it," was his reply. Not very reassuring in the least.

"Are you saying you doubt that she can or you doubt that she will?" Severus asked. For it seemed such a crucial distinction, though Severus knew many might not immediately grasp it.

Dumbledore didn't answer for a moment. "Jane can not find Potter as long as she has not seen him. And even if that happens...she understands what's at stake."

"I suppose you filled her head with the same rubbish you have been spouting to me all these years. You told her he was the 'Chosen One'?"

Severus's and Dumbledore's eyes locked in a momentary battle of wills. Severus looked away first. He always did.

"Did you ever give her any poisonous potions?"

"Of course not. I was curious, though."

"How can she-" he couldn't finish.

"Yes. Amazing isn't she," Dumbledore said, smiling a little.

"Amazing," Severus repeated the word, clearly confounded by the idea of her. "How long did it take you to figure out that she's impervious to magic?"

"Well," Dumbledore began, raising his hands in front of his chest and aligning his fingertips. "I discovered that I couldn't Apparate with her the first night I met her. I was baffled by it, but didn't immediately assume that she was immune to all magic, of course. It was just little things all adding up, to begin with. I only knew for sure when I gave her some potions to help heal her leg.

"She was upset about that. She thought her leg would at last be restored. Poor girl. I, however, was intrigued," Dumbledore explained, his eyes alight with the thrill of it. It was clear to Severus that Dumbledore had been longing to share this with someone – _anyone_ \- for ages. "I asked her if she would mind me doing a few harmless spells on her. She wasn't opposed to it at all in the beginning. I think magic completely fascinated her. She asked me-," he stopped.

"What?" Severus prompted.

"Well, suffice it to say that I got a bit carried away with it all. I mean she was bored to tears sometimes, so I tried not overtax her patience. But I couldn't put it aside. Not for the life of me. I tried hundreds of spells on her over the two years she was under my care, and hundreds of potions. I always assumed that she would be impervious to everything, but there were certain things I couldn't bring myself to try. I was scared, you see. What if there are exceptions? Other than a few hundred minor hexes and jinxes...well, I could never bring myself to try any curses of course."

Severus laughed in spite of himself.

"Only a few hundred hexes and jinxes?" he said laughing harder.

Dumbledore chuckled sheepishly.

" _Minor_ ones," he emphasized.

"And she was fine with it?" Severus asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.

"For the most part. Like I said, she was just bored by it a lot of the time. But she...trusted me." Dumbledore rubbed his brow again. "She knew I would stop if she wished it."

"If she was so bored why didn't she?"

"Well, she could see how important it was to me. She is...kind-hearted."

"Oh, well, that's wonderful. Do you suppose she'll just lay herself down when the Dark Lord tells her he's going to _dissect_ her?"

Dumbledore's brow furrowed and he said, "Please do not make such callous jokes about that, Severus. I can not bear it."

Severus just shook his head, his greasy black locks swaying with the motion of it. He could feel his anger with Dumbledore heating his chest and heart again. How could he? She was so...helpless.

"Severus, you have to help her," Dumbledore pleaded with him, his voice deepening with his emotions.

"How?"

"Voldemort trusts you. He trusts your judgment. And he has not had to deal with anything in a non-magical manner for decades," Dumbledore said urgently, leaning forward in his chair. "Plus, he knows about your Muggle upbringing. He'll consult you. You just have to convince him that the benefits of having her spy for him outweigh the ones of hurting her for the sake of experimentation."

"He can't have both?"

"No. She can not spy when she is in any sort of physical pain, or even emotionally overwrought. That is the long and the short of it. As long as Voldemort is convinced of her worth as a tool for helping him investigate his enemies, he will have to reign in his compulsions to torture or maim her."

Severus, for the millionth time, thought that Dumbledore was asking too much from him. But he couldn't refrain from trying, though he was loath to promise Dumbledore this out of sheer _spite_. He couldn't pry out of his mind the image of her frail naked body flying into the air after Macnair pounded her. God, _what_ had Dumbledore been _thinking_?

"How does she do it?"

"Spy? I have no idea, old friend," Dumbledore said, shaking his head a little, clearly flummoxed by the idea of it. "I asked her dozens of questions about it and could never make knuts or galleons of it. It is just a unique power that she was born with."

"In addition to being impervious to magic," Severus said.

"Or perhaps because of it," Dumbledore said.

Severus gave him a quizzical look. "You think it is connected."

"Mind you, this is just a theory I began to entertain after I knew her for a while," Dumbledore said, attempting to clarify his meaning, "because she has this...strange ability to detach a cognitive part of herself at will. It is as though she was born with a vital piece of herself...loosened, so to speak. I have often wondered if this has not changed her...basic structure, on a minutely physical level, and this somehow prevents magic from having a hold on her." (If scientific words existed in either wizard's vocabulary, the terms cellular or microscopic might have substituted minutely physical.)

"Interesting," Severus replied.

 _He_ was fascinated by her. He had never once imagined there could be a person in the world who could not be affected by magic. It affected everything. Animals, objects, fire, air. Everything. But apparently not this girl. How?

Severus rubbed his temples and forehead. He was exhausted.

"She must be very scared," Dumbledore said quietly.

"And _whose_ fault is that?" Severus snapped.

"You will try to help her, yes?" Dumbledore asked again.

"I will try, Dumbledore. But I don't have as much faith in my abilities as you do. And this is... For the Dark Lord to be presented with something this...young and a Muggle, and she is clearly so ignorant...and her leg! I believe everything about her serves to incense him. I just can not fathom what you were thinking when you decided to allow her to help against The Dark Lord."

"I can not explain all of my reasons to you, Severus. Suffice it to say, I had a good many of them. Please, just bear in mind that she is more than she appears."

"I will try to keep it mind. Not so the Dark Lord can see, of course. She just seems so... _stupid_."

Severus saw the barest glimmer of a smile in the late headmaster's eyes. "Good."


	7. Interrogation

**Posted:** 11/24/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Interrogation**

 **5th June, 1998**

The Malfoys lived in the highest recesses of their palatial home. When Abraxas and Rosamunde were alive they had their rooms in the west wing, while Lucius, Narcissa and Draco occupied the east. This had granted them some much needed privacy and space while they shared their ancestral manor. When both generations were still alive they broke their nightly fast in their separate wings, came together each evening to sup downstairs in the formal dining room, and the noontime dinner could generally go either way, depending on a variety of factors. Since the Dark Lord had commandeered the lowest level of their home, the Malfoys had stopped using the first floor for any of the daily activities that could be classified as living. They now took all of their meals on the third floor in the ample sitting room that adjoined Lucius and Narcissa's bedroom with their son's.

It was a lovely, lofty apartment with a high ceiling, expansive windows, and a soft chromatic harmony. Lucius had asked his wife to fit it up with any decorations she pleased when they returned from their honeymoon, and she had certainly done justice to her privileged upbringing by incorporating a classic refinement fused with modern elegance. Undertaking it with cheerful relish, Cissa had scoured every reputable store from London to Paris, fingering the textiles and matching up fabric swatches with paint samples. Her mother-in-law had generously allowed her to select some articles from the other, less used areas of the manor that she thought might add an old-world touch. Her effort had yielded an airy, pleasant space for the three remaining Malfoys to lounge in a glaucous blend of pearl grays, cool blues and some hints of pastel green. She had taken almost three years to complete the project, refusing to sacrifice her aesthetic taste in lieu of haste.

This sort of deliberate consideration, Lucius was to learn throughout twenty-one years of matrimony to her, was a defining characteristic of Cissa; it was one of her greatest and most cunning features. She was guarded, pensive, ever diplomatic, and sly. She could be charming in an understated manner, but she purposefully came across as a bit vacant. Being underestimated was, in her mind, one of the cleverest ways of attaining what you wanted; and this covert method had certainly played its crucial part in catching her husband's eye, when he was young and stupid and had yet to realize what an asset a crafty wife could be. So while many of her acquaintances and more than a few of her family members thought that she was rather simple, Lucius, to his delight and occasionally to his vexation, had learned over time that this was hardly the case.

When Draco had joined them for breakfast that morning his mother and father wished him a happy birthday and Cissa had supplemented her felicitations with a kiss on his cheek. He accepted their well wishes with a stolid demeanor and a terse comment that expressed his pleasure of the presents he had received from them, and then he went to the buffet to fill his plate with some eggs and toast.

As Lucius and Narcissa had been trapped in their manor for so many weeks and hadn't any access to the shops, Cissa had spent the last few weeks rummaging through every room in the house, gathering up second-hand things that she could reasonably bestow on him in good conscience. It was awful. She had bought a few items for him in the months after Christmas, as she was an avid spender with or without an occasion, but she had planned to procure the bulk of it once he had finished his last term at Hogwarts and he could accompany her to Diagon Alley to pick out what he liked. They had some treasured pieces of jewelry that they had always meant to give him when he reached adulthood, in keeping with their familial traditions. Lucius had gifted him with a beautiful set of cufflinks that his father had given him on his own eighteenth birthday. But, after she had accumulated and wrapped each piece, it only came out to about seventeen presents. Pitiful. The preceding day, before the mudblood had showed up, she was able to hold in every tear, save one, as she had examined the pathetic pile of parcels on her bed. What would Lucius think if he saw her carrying on this way? She removed from her pocket a silk handkerchief with a soft, lacy border and dabbed away the evidence of her weakness.

She would have liked to attribute her son's abrupt manner to the substantial lack of presents at the foot of his bed when he woke, but at this point he couldn't have cared less. He hardly ever smiled these days or expressed enthusiasm with anything. He was sad, she knew. The suffering she experienced at her inability to lavish him with expensive goods was simply a compounding of her yearning ache that the time for being able pull him into her lap and let him cry to her over his troubles was past. He was only seated across the table from her and he seemed completely out of reach.

Bellatrix now joined Lucius and Narcissa in the sitting room, first poking her head inside to make sure It wasn't with them.

"Where is It?" she asked as she came in and sat beside her sister.

"Locked up in the spare room," Cissa informed her.

"Which one?"

"The purple one," she answered, looking up from a spell book and examining Bella coolly.

Bella had her brown untidy curls pinned up in a lopsided bun at the back of her head, and while her deep brown robes displayed vestiges of prosperity, their outdated couture made Narcissa cringe. Azkaban had depleted the freshness of Bella's skin, leaving it dried out with faint wrinkles webbing out from around her large eyes and creating a pair of deep parentheses on either side of her thin mouth. Her teeth had partially decayed as well, giving some of them a blackish border while others were completely rotted away to gaping stumps. And despite all of Narcissa's initial attempts to fill in the hollows with nourishing meals, she was still emaciated. However, of all the physical evidence of her sister's incarceration, it was the internal changes that detracted most from her beauty. She was restless, forgetful, fierce, unreasonable, self-absorbed, ineffectual in every way that didn't pertain directly to her role as a Death Eater, and completely obsessed with the Dark Lord. In short, wizard's prison had shorn away everything that Cissa had loved about her sister in their youth.

"Sorry, Cissy," Bella said softly, shrugging. She pretended to examine her jagged fingernails while she went on, "I should have stayed and helped. I know the Dark Lord wouldn't be pleased if He knew. You won't tell Him, will you?"

"I doubt he'll ask," she replied, as though this was all she could offer. He could almost always tell when he was being lied to after all.

"Did It give you any cheek?" she asked.

"No."

"Did He tell you what time He would come back?" Bella inquired casually.

"I told what you he said yesterday," she reminded Bella. It was an asinine question. Other than the weekly meetings that he held almost every Sunday evening at eight, he rarely told anyone where he would be, or when. Narcissa had noticed long ago how he seemed to enjoy keeping everybody guessing, and having them drop everything at a moment's notice to come when he beckoned.

Martha, a stout witch who worked for the Malfoys, came in, levitating a large tray laden with cold meats, fruits, and cheeses and set it in the center of the mahogany table. On her way out of the room she passed Rumpa, a small pregnant house-elf, who was on her way in with a pitcher of juice and a big flowery tea pot. This house-elf technically belonged to Druella Black, Narcissa and Bellatrix's mother, but she kindly allowed Narcissa to occasionally borrow her since they had lost Dobby. When Rumpa's offspring was old enough to be separated from her, Druella planned on giving it to her youngest daughter. Narcissa hoped the house-elf's progeny was female. Everyone wanted female house-elves, as they were the ones who continued the line of enchanted slavery when they bred. This was why, in general, female house-elves were treated less roughly than males, even more so when they were pregnant. If too many males were born, then a family's source of free labor would die out and then they had to wait to inherit another one; or sometimes, if one pure-blood family had a surplus, they might consent to sell one. House-elves were relatively expensive, especially the females of a procreant age.

When a family's elves had all died off, then they would have to resort to paying servants to cook and clean for them. Martha was a witch with a large pack of children to feed, who lived in a nearby village. Not many witches were available as servants as they exacted high wages, so only the richest people could afford them. Lucius had tried to explain to Narcissa the differences between magical and Muggle servants.

"Since witches can use magic to acquire basic necessities like food and warmth, they don't need the money the way Muggles do, so they can ask higher wages," Lucius had told her matter-of-factly.

"But that doesn't make sense," she had insisted. "If they can use magic to obtain what they need then shouldn't we pay them _less_?"

"No, because if we don't give them better compensation for their work then they'll just quit, whereas Muggles need the money that they earn to buy everything, so they'll agree to work for less money. From what I hear, they're more submissive like house-elves. They certainly don't give any cheek, as is the tendency of these low-class witches."

She still couldn't understand his reasoning, no matter how he tried to explain it to her. Lucius, like every Malfoy patriarch it seemed, understood all things monetary, whether it was magical or Muggle. It amazed her sometimes how much he knew about the Muggle world, based on the knowledge he acquired in his pecuniary pursuits.

Narcissa almost wished they could hire one of these docile creatures to do the cooking and cleaning, Muggle or not. True, they were closer to animals than people, but for that matter so were house-elves. Martha was _so_ annoying. She was a pure-blood witch whose family had squandered all of their wealth a few generations back - which was inexcusable in and of itself - but it also gave her the most meretricious sense of self-importance. She was constantly speaking to them when she should have remained silent. Lucius and Narcissa had discussed dismissing her numerous times in the five years that Martha had worked for them, and had even taken out advertisements in the Daily Prophet more than once, endeavoring to secure a suitable replacement, but it had never worked out. So the garrulous witch stayed.

As Rumpa and Martha went about setting out and serving their lunch the Malfoys and Bella gathered around the table and tucked in.

Bellatrix made a little sandwich with some crackers, cheese, and sausage and after she'd eaten about half of it, said, "Dolphy isn't feeling well."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Cissa replied. "Is it serious?"

Bella shrugged and said, "I'm pretty sure it's the shivers."

The shivers was the magical equivalent to the Muggles' flu, and it was highly potion resistant. Most wizards and witches were afflicted with it at least once a winter.

"How unusual for this time of year," Lucius contributed. "Has Dolphy gone to St. Mungo's to see a healer?"

Martha, who could never hold her tongue for longer than a few minutes, chimed in with, "The shivers' goin' round, what I 'ear."

Pretending as though Martha wasn't there, Bellatrix said, "I don't think so. No point, really, is there? It will run its course whether you go to a healer or not. Perhaps he should though. Yesterday he wanted to know if I'd go home and take care of him."

"What did you say?" Narcissa asked.

"I can't go home, as you know perfectly well. The Dark Lord wishes me to remain here," she stated.

"Yes, but if you asked his leave to go home and take care of your husband, I'm sure he'd allow it," Lucius pointed out.

"You know I can't do that, Lucius!" she huffed, her chocolate eyes widening with her adamancy. "The Dark Lord needs me much more than Dolphy does. Besides, he has Lorky to care for him." Lorky was Roldophus's house-elf.

"I'm so glad the weather's warming up, aren't you Lucius?" Cissa asked, giving her husband a meaningful look.

"Yes," he answered brusquely, understanding what his wife wanted, but the muscles of his long jaw reflexively tightening up with all of his suppressed words.

"Are you going to go outside and ride your broomstick after dinner, dear?" Narcissa asked Draco.

He just shrugged his narrow shoulders and said, "Maybe."

They were silent a while, chewing, drinking and thinking.

After Martha left the room Bella asked the general company, "What do you think the Dark Lord's going to do with It?"

"I wish he'd kill It," Lucius said.

"Praise Medea," Bella seconded.

"I never imagined something that unnatural could exist," Narcissa offered.

"It's so stupid," Bella said. "I simply can not believe It ever had the ability to help Dumbledore. It can barely string two words together."

"I agree," Lucius said. "House-elves have a better command of English than It does."

Each of them laughed a bit at the accuracy of his observation.

"What are all of those metal things on Its teeth?" Narcissa asked.

"I think I know," Draco said. They all looked at him.

"Some of the mudbloods at Hogwarts had that," he explained. "I think it's called bracers, and it's meant to straighten teeth."

"What's the point of having straight teeth if you have to wear that revolting contraption over them? I'd rather my teeth were crooked than wear anything that _atrocious_ ," she replied.

"No, Mother, I think it's only meant to be worn for a while and then, once it comes off, the teeth are straight," Draco clarified.

"What? Straight for how long?" Narcissa asked sceptically.

"Forever, I guess," he said, shrugging again.

"That doesn't make sense," Bella disagreed. "Without a spell, how could it keep them straight once it has come off?"

Draco looked around the table and saw that they were all looking at him expectantly.

"I don't know," he said, seeming a bit offended that they should expect him to be an expert on such a vulgar topic. "Who cares anyway?" He put a large piece of chicken into his mouth as though to remind them all what they were meant to be doing.

He was right of course. It was to do with mudbloods, so it wasn't an appropriate thing to discuss at the dinner table anyway.

But after a while Bella brought It up again. "The Dark Lord mentioned some plans for It. I wonder what He meant by that."

"Obviously he's thinking of having It spy for him," Lucius said.

"Yes, but I was wondering on whom," she said as she brought her teacup to her thin pale lips.

"On anybody he thinks might harbor oppositional plans or ideas against him, probably," Lucius conjectured with complete authority and ease. "People in the ministry perhaps, or even those known to be connected with the Order." He wiped his mouth on his napkin and continued, "In a few weeks the Wizangamot are voting to overturn the Muggle Protection Act, so he may use It to find out how many are planning to oppose it's removal."

"I suppose," she conceded. "It's so creepy. I can't believe It admitted It watched us in the loo."

"Don't use slang, please, Bella," Cissa gently implored.

"Sorry. But does it really matter whether I call it the lavatory or the loo? It was still watching."

"Perhaps," said Draco, invoking a low pitch to indicate suspense, "It's watching us right now." And he comically cast his eyes around the room.

They laughed a little, but then they all glanced suspiciously around and shivered a bit.

"I hope he punishes the voyeuristic miscreant," Lucius stated simply.

"I hope he lets _me_ do it," Bella added, her large brown eyes ablaze with sadistic longing.

When the meal was finished Narcissa piled high a plate of food to take to It.

Perhaps in an effort to cancel her negligence of the previous evening, Bellatrix accompanied Narcissa to the spare room to leave the meal.

When they walked in It was lying on the bed fully dressed, staring at the canopy, humming quietly. It sat up after a moment, awkwardly climbed down from the high bed, and, with a slight hobble, came towards the table where they'd set the food and a cup of tepid tea. It didn't seem to want to look directly at them.

Its right eye and cheek were swollen and had turned a nasty shade of dark blue. The dress that Narcissa had given It to wear was black velvet, a bit too loose on Its petite frame, and the bottom was hanging so low that It had to use a hand to hold the gown up while It walked, to prevent Itself tripping on the hem. It was barefoot, as they had thrown out Its scuffed boots along with all the other tattered clothes It had been wearing when It arrived yesterday, and the ugly piece of Its fake limb was visible as It walked toward them.

"Can I's be comin' out after I's ated?" It asked.

"No," Bella said, speaking quiet roughly to It. "You can come out when the Dark Lord arrives."

"Please," It implored. "I's not be touchin' nuffink."

"I said no, you ugly little cretin!" Bella practically screamed.

The anger seemed to force It back a bit and the next thing Narcissa knew, one of Its feet was caught on a rug and it had toppled over onto Its backside.

Bella threw back her head and released a loud howl of mirth. Narcissa joined her sister in a milder, more dignified fashion. They left the room and locked the door, leaving It to scramble off the floor as best as It could.

 **~x~}{~x~**

Thoughts of the child had kept the Dark Lord up well into the night. At last he had uncovered the mystery of Dumbledore's secret, and the revelations of the previous day had, at turns, elated him when he thought of brandishing her as his own weapon, and then left him weak with accumulated fury. He longed to point his wand at her and torture her until she lost control of every bodily fluid; then he imagined wrapping his long white hands around her scrawny, swarthy neck and squeezing until her engorged lips turned blue. Picturing this manual vulgarity made him feel dirty and he washed his hands every time it permeated him. This was such a beloved aspect of magic to him; he could accomplish everything with a flick of the wrist: cleanly, efficiently and dispassionately. That such an exception to his magic could exist tortured _him_.

The various ways in which he could use her powers spread before him in a vast expanse of delectability. Annihilating his enemies, tracking down defectors, without having to do any actual tracking himself, he could even have her watch his servants, to test their loyalties, if he liked. But the most critical factor of it all was Potter. He was entertaining high hopes that this most irritating piece of unfinished business could at last be resolved.

He had meditated on these possibilities and come up with a course of action that would simultaneously resolve two of his problems.

It was inescapable that he would have to punish her. His servants needed to see her debased at his command, abject both in pain and position. Something mild would probably be all that was safe to attempt. She had said that in order to spy she needed to be comfortable and calm, so if she was too badly damaged it could impair her functionality. Frustrating as it was, the Dark Lord knew that he had to check his punitive impulses if he was going utilize her gift.

This act of inflicting agony and humility would also allow him to discover whether she was able to find Potter for him. He couldn't trust her to tell him the truth about it as she had gone to Dumbledore for help, and most unfortunately he couldn't, as he would have done any other time, simply peruse her thoughts at his leisure. Trying to penetrate her mind had left his own a bit sore. So questioning her while she was being hurt, sobbing and begging for mercy, would be the best way to deduce her real capabilities in regards to that evasive boy.

Her means of living was another irksome problem. Dumbledore had simply left her to live in the care of a Muggle without having to worry about her running away. Dumbledore, out of the despicable softness of his heart, wouldn't have hurt the child even if she had decided to quit working for him, however, by now, she would know that the Dark Lord had a separate _modus operandi_ altogether. He really thought the safest, most prudent solution would be to have her stay with the Malfoys for the time being, besides, mudblood or no, he wouldn't have any servant of his living with Muggles or even living like them. It would be an appropriate way to continue tormenting the Malfoys for their disobedience and utter idiocy in allowing a house-elf to overcome them. It was also convenient as he was always slipping in and out of the manor in the course of conducting his daily business. This arrangement would simultaneously satisfy his need to keep her close and his desire to keep the Malfoys in a necessary state of suspended subjugation.

He arrived at the manor around four and he was so eager to set eyes on her again he went upstairs to fetch her himself. It was clear from their countenance the Malfoys and Bellatrix were astonished to see him coming into their sitting room. He rarely came up here.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Fine, my Lord," Bellatrix answered eagerly. "Cissy and I just went and checked on It a little while ago, and It's just sitting around waiting for You."

"Excellent," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Take me to her."

They led him to the room, he used his wand to unlock the door, and they followed him inside.

She was on the bed. When she saw him enter the room she had to make another graceless climb down, and, her small hands clutching at the lengthy skirt of her black gown, she took a few steps to meet him. She released her skirt, crossed her arms, and stationed her eyes on a painting behind him.

He looked her over. "Did you have a good rest?'

She nodded.

"Good, good," he intoned softly. "Have you had enough to eat?"

She nodded again.

"Come along downstairs then," he told her. "I have potions for you to drink and questions for you to answer."

He had Nagini with him today. She wound lazy circles around the gathered Death Eaters, her soft sounds like so many sibilant portents of death. The Dark Lord put Narcissa and Draco at a table to take notes of the various poisons he had selected for her to drink and he put Severus in charge of dispensing them to her. At first, he hadn't wanted to dilute the deadly concoctions, but after she started retching and even vomiting - she'd quietly murmured, "tastes like dog shit" while wiping her mouth on her velvet sleeve - Severus had convinced him that really, they wouldn't be able to accurately estimate their effects if she kept heaving them up. So he allowed Severus to add small drops of each one to a small glass of water that he kept refilling. Then they were interrupted every twenty minutes or so while she went to relieve herself. It was a slow process.

He had to ask her dozens of questions to erect a precise image of how it was that she spied, how she 'slipped away', as she called it. Despite her limited vocabulary and almost nonexistent syntax he was relentless. It seemed that she spied by lying down on a soft comfortable surface, drew deep breaths until she was completely relaxed, then her mind, or her spirit, some cognitive piece of her was able to leave her body. She could stand outside of herself, she told him, and watch herself lying on the bed. He wanted to know how she got around in this way, did she fly? She _could_ glide through the air, she said, over landscapes high as a bird if she wished, but that wasn't how she usually went as it took so long. She told him that normally she would just visualize who she wanted to find and then she would be instantaneously with them, wherever they were.

"You can find anybody you like?" he had asked.

She shook her head. "I's gots to be seein' 'em first."

"So how did you ever see me?"

"I's seein' some of yer Deaf Eaters, see. Then I's be followin' 'em to you."

How had she seen his Death Eaters? Dumbledore had taken her to Diagon Alley and pointed out people he knew to be connected with the Dark Lord. He then wanted to know how she had found Dumbledore. She told him that when she had slipped away one morning, just for the fun of it apparently, she had followed a man down an alley of London who "were dressed all funny" and this man had led her into the Ministry of Magic. From then on, she said, she often returned to watch the witches and wizards, to admire the Fountain of Brotherhood, and to fly around with the paper memos.

She told him that she had seen Dumbledore the first time when he had gone to see Toffee.

"Who?"

"You knows. That man 'oo were minister a while back. Mr. Toffee."

"You mean Fudge?" he asked wearily. The Death Eaters couldn't help tittering; each of them were unwillingly enraptured by her ability, but loathe to own it.

She said she liked the looks of Dumbledore. He seemed so kind, so she had followed him to Hogwarts.

"So you liked going to Hogwarts then? You wondered through the common rooms and the classrooms watching the students while they ate and studied."

She shook her head. "I's only goin' to see Dumbledore talkin' to 'is pictures."

"His pictures?"

"Yeah. In 'is office. 'E be talkin' to 'is pictures."

"I believe, my lord," Severus interjected, "she's talking about the portraits of the previous headmasters and mistresses that are traditionally hung in the Headmaster's office."

"Is that what you mean?"

She nodded.

This, it seemed, was how she had convinced Dumbledore that she had the power to spy when she went looking for him. She had repeated to him pieces of a conversation she had overheard him having with his portraits.

"Why did you go to Dumbledore in the first place? You said yesterday that you were in a bad home. Tell me what was so bad about it."

She immediately began to fidget, crossing and uncrossing her arms and kicking the leg of her chair.

"They's was mean," she said quietly.

"In what way were they mean to you?"

She lowered her head a bit and softly told him that they had turned her into their slave. Apparently she was made to do all the cleaning and cooking, and had to constantly mind their children as well.

"There was a time," the Dark Lord began, "two summers ago. It was right after the Ministry officials caught my Death Eaters trying to bring me the orb from the Hall of Prophecies. For about three months every thing was going smoothly; all of my plans were being carried out with barely any interference from Dumbledore, his Order, or the ministry. Why? Had you stopped spying?"

She hesitated a moment and then slowly nodded.

"I want you to tell me why you stopped spying."

Jane reached up and began to gently pull the hair on the back of her head. She started kicking the leg of her chair, gently, rhythmically. He could see she didn't want to tell him.

"I-," she started and then paused. "I were too sad, see."

"Why?" he asked her. "Why were you so sad?"

She mumbled something.

"What did you say?" he pressed her.

"I's sayin' that my friend be dyin'." She crossed her arms and he watched as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Who? Who was your friend?"

She sniffed loudly and then swiped her sleeve under her nose.

"It be Sirius."

Bellatrix whooped with self-satisfied jubilation. Everyone present knew why this news had made her so pleased, and a few of them laughed aloud at her happiness. She had inadvertently given her master a respite by killing off that blood-traitor cousin of hers.

"How many other members of the Order did you meet?"

She shrugged and wiped another tear off of her face. "Jus' 'im."

He asked her if she lived at headquarters and she told him no, Dumbledore hadn't wanted her to see anybody other than himself and Sirius. Which the Dark Lord thought made complete sense. She said that she had lived close to Grimmauld Place and that Sirius would often apparate directly to her, acting as a go-between for her and Dumbledore.

Who had she lived with? Another old woman like Mrs. Carrington, a widow and a Muggle named Mrs. Churchstreet, but only for about seven months. Mrs. Churchstreet had gone to America, and then she'd lived with yet another elderly woman by the name of Ms. O'Bryan for eight months. This Irish person was currently residing, she believed, in Australia. The Dark Lord noticed a pattern. He could clearly see that Dumbledore hadn't wanted Jane to live with anybody for too long; he hadn't wanted her to establish close emotional ties with anybody that he, the Dark Lord, could then use to hurt or control her. It had been a wise move on Dumbledore's part.

Next he asked for more particulars about her spying. Could she stay out of her body for as long as she liked? No, she said, it varied in length. If she grew too hungry, or tired, or even if she needed to use the lavatory, her body it seemed would bring her back to herself. She also told him that being touched by any living thing, even an animal, would bring her instantly back.

Extracting all of this information from her, and then sifting through her near incomprehensible language in order to extrapolate the meaning, had taken him nearly two hours. Severus had since finished feeding her all the poisons and the Dark Lord had begun to cast an assortment of spells at her while he concluded his interrogation. Once he decided he was finished questioning her, he took her and his Death Eaters off guard when two long thin ropes flew from the tip of his wand and wrapped themselves tightly around her wrists and ankles.

With the ease and skill of a conductor flourishing his baton, the Dark Lord soon had Jane turned around in her chair and tied to it with her bottom in the air. He flipped her skirt up and, with a couple of strategically placed cuts, her knickers fell in pieces to the floor. It was a consolation to him that even if he couldn't kill or torture her with magic, not directly, he still had the ability to manipulate her with it.

Like a flock of vultures circling a cadaverous feast, the assembled servants had risen from their seats with obscene excitement, and began to pace around the mudblood with a focused energy. They immediately grew heady with the prospect of enticing violence and were soon laughing, mocking her pleas for mercy, and passing around bottles of the Malfoys' finest wines. The Dark Lord watched them with pleasure, enjoying their enjoyment.

With a few exceptions, the Dark Lord knew that their love of carnage bound his servants to him with a more intimate embrace than the snake and skull with which he had branded them. They all parroted his lofty ideals of blood purity with a sycophantic dedication but, honestly, it was the love of power that marked them. Deeply.

He knew their vices and fetishes like the back of Nagini. All of their secret urges and desires were laid transparent before him through their eyes. Therefore he wasn't a bit surprised when a few of his servants - ones with more paedophilic passions - made to the rear of his new spy to steal dissolute glances at the rose-colored entrance of her sex. ( _Untried_? he wondered. Food for thought.) He let them look at the forbidden fruit, saw the dream in their eyes of stuffing her mouth with a cloth, pulling a pillowcase over her head, and enjoying the rest of her flimsy unripe body. He had made it clear to them all that she wasn't to be touched, so he let them fantasize for a few more moments. After all, when he was through giving them a show, these servants would most likely just take themselves to a park or to a playground to pluck up whichever adolescent animal caught their fancy and take it home to enjoy it in whatever way they pleased. The Dark Lord knew that many of them were beginning to do this on a regular basis.

He was creating a world for them in which they could play. He was carving out some breathing space where they could safely indulge their whims of people-shaped slaves with plenty of extra room for the bodies to pile up. Without the interference of the Ministry, or that pesky Dumbledore, the Muggles of England would soon be crawling on hands and knees, wearing shackles and collars, in sweet submission like the dogs that they were. If his servants had tastes that ran toward bestiality so be it, as long as there were no more abominable half-bloods being born. The Dark Lord was planning to implement some solid laws to abolish these distasteful practices for good within the next few months.

The Dark Lord had put in quite a bit of consideration about how he was going to inflict this pain and degradation on his spy. Other than deciding how to punish her, he had to think about who would be the safest person to distribute it. He knew perfectly well that most of them would be willing to dispatch this assignment with alacrity, especially Bellatrix. But the Dark Lord was beginning to see that this was what made her, and many of them, so unsuitable for the job.

He was beginning to see that this was what made Bellatrix unsuitable for many jobs. Her dedication was commendable, but her zeal was her undoing. He knew why this was the case, of course, as it was so obvious. It was because she was a woman. Women had too many feelings and that's why they were meant to stay home and take of their children. When she first came to his attention, he was impressed by the wide knowledge and strength of her curses, the swiftness of her reflexes, and her articulate expression of her beliefs. However, it was growing clear to him that her emotional excesses for their cause were clouding her judgment.

Macnair was the next person he had considered, because he was one of the rare wizards who dealt in pain and death without a wand. Ultimately, the Dark Lord had decided that he was too brutal; he was too practiced at breaking flesh and bone, so the Dark Lord had reservations about whether or not he could be trusted to restrain himself to simply beating on it.

He had momentarily thought about asking Severus to do it. Unlike Bellatrix, Macnair, and most of the other Death Eaters, Severus wasn't fond of violence for the sake of it. He could dole it out when necessary, but he wasn't possessed of a torrid need to administer it for pleasure. In this respect he was a good candidate for the job, but the Dark Lord had eventually checked him off the potential list as well. He thought that Severus might consider this task beneath him, and as he was currently residing high in the Dark Lord's good graces, he had decided to grant him a reprieve.

Finally, after all this deliberation, he had decided on:

"Nott."

Theodore Nott stepped out of the assembly and took his place next to his master.

Nott was of a steady disposition, and like Severus, he seemed to consider the deliverance of pain to be a duty, rather than a predilection.

The Dark Lord used his wand to sever and summon a long twine of soft cord which dangled from the drapes that framed the high windows of the parlor. Then he transfigured it from silk to leather. Severus, who had been standing close by, now came forward and addressed him.

"My Lord, I wonder if this leather strap is suitable for the punishment you have in mind."

The Dark Lord took Severus by the arm, steered him toward a corner, and with a lowered voice said, "I don't wish to cause irreversible harm to her, Severus. Do you think this whip will suffice?"

"I think, my lord, it will exceed your expectations. The leather will most certainly break her skin."

"I know she can't be healed with magic, but even some cuts will heal themselves. Eventually."

"No, my lord," he began explaining, "this would score her skin too deeply and that could result in a dangerous, potentially fatal, amount of blood loss. Even if she does survive the event, the wounds will fester. Then, if you wish her to live, she'll have to be taken to a hospital. A Muggle hospital." The Dark Lord's lip curled at this unappetizing prospect. "I think this might be what you have in mind." And pulling out his own wand, Severus transformed the leather whip into a stout wooden board with a thick handle.

Severus smacked the board across the palm of his hand, examining it, and said, "My father used to beat me with one of these. He called it his 'magical quiet-maker.'" Then he looked at the Dark Lord and added, "It was the only attempt I ever saw that brute make at irony." Severus refrained from telling the Dark Lord that his father's board was riddled with holes, which reduced air resistance, and made for a swifter and much more painful impact.

The Dark Lord, having been privy to something like this before, knew that Severus was sometimes prone to these mawkish musings. Weren't they all?

"This should be safe to hit her with for…thirty minutes?"

Severus frowned a little. "Better make it twenty, just to be on the safe side."

The Dark Lord nodded and said, "It's good to know there are a few people I can always rely on to tell me the truth, Severus."

"It's an honor, my lord," Severus answered, knowing this compliment was the closest the Dark Lord could ever come to saying, "Thank you."

The Dark Lord handed the hefty paddle to Nott and told him to wait for his signal to begin.

He walked around the chair until he was facing his tragic little spy. Her face was incandescent with her distress and fruitless struggles, while her eyes and nose ran profusely. He noticed her glasses had slipped off her face and lay on the floor. They had suffered a crack from the landing. She was softly sobbing and whispering, "Please, please, please. I's sorry, please, I's so sorry. Please don't hurts me, please." It was heartening to hear her begging him for leniency. He summoned her glasses from the floor, repaired them, and decided to pocket them for the time being. After all, they would just fall off again if he were to put them back on her.

"Now then," the room fell silent, "I'm going to ask you something, my hairy little mudblood. If the answer is yes, I'll make sure the pain stops. However, keep in mind that if you do say yes, you had better be able to deliver."

He took a few steps back and asked, "Have you ever seen Harry Potter?"

He looked toward Nott and nodded, signaling him to start spanking.


	8. Unexpected Offerings

**Posted:** 11/25/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Unexpected Offerings**

 **11** **th** **June, 1998**

The Dark Lord had been forced to conclude that she didn't know how to find Potter. She had writhed and screamed and cried and panted through the mild but merciless beating and had all the while adamantly maintained that she had never seen him. The thought that she could have lied niggled at the deepest recesses of his mind. He thought he could always distinguish between the veracious and the fallacious, but with this fey child he had lost all confidence. With her, the Dark Lord found himself hovering beside a deep precipice of uncertainty; he wanted to push her into this chasm, to end her, but somehow this idea made him feel weak. She was young and grossly ignorant; it made him possessed of a voracious need to keep her and use her the way Dumbledore had. He wanted to surpass the damage she had caused him by erecting his own towering tally of ways in which she served him. She had to cancel out her debts to him, fill them in with a sizable application of her power.

He was so unnerved by her existence the only thing he could fathom doing was keeping her chained at his feet.

 **~x~}{~x~**

"If we ask him that, he might think we're saying we don't want to keep It for him," Narcissa said, as she replaced her teacup in its saucer.

The Malfoys and Bella were in the sitting room having their afternoon tea. The Dark Lord was in their spare room with Jane, doing Merlin knew what with her. He had come upstairs several times since her spanking and shut himself in with her over the last week. He usually stayed with her for a couple of hours. He must not have been saying nor doing anything to distress her, much to their mutual disappointment, because whenever they took her supper afterwards she was always calm.

Every time they took her food, she asked when they would let her out of the room. Never. Of course.

"Perhaps, but if I suggested it as though it were in Its best interest, don't you think that would make him see that we're not trying to shirk our duties to him?" Lucius asked.

His wife just shook her head and Draco and Bella remained silent.

None of them knew what to do. The longer the Dark Lord left her in their care the more hopeless they grew of him ever finding another situation for her. They knew why he had chosen them, singled them out for this feculent task. When the Dark Lord addressed them any more he didn't ask, he _told_. He was so disgusted with the Malfoys that he barely looked at them, and all four of them had been banned from attending his weekly meetings. Narcissa and Draco didn't mind at all, but it worried Lucius, and broke Bella's black heart.

There was a soft knock on the door of the sitting room. Bemused at this unexpected request for entry, Lucius called, "Come in."

The Malfoys couldn't have been more astonished or pleased when Severus opened the door and came to them. They all, save Bellatrix, stood to show deference to his presence, and they noticed that there was a large box, levitating a few feet off the ground, which crossed the room with him in his wake.

"Severus, this is a pleasant surprise," Lucius said with feeling.

Lucius would never forget his gratitude to his old friend for taking care of his son so thoroughly, while he had been locked up in Azkaban. Nor would his wife it seemed, as she went around the table and greeted him with a chaste kiss on his cheek. Lucius saw the pasty pallor of Severus's cheeks flush slightly pink at this profusion of gladness on Narcissa's part.

"Please have some tea with us, Severus," she asked him quietly and with genuine warmth.

Severus thanked them and took a seat around the large square table. He put the box on the floor behind his chair and since he didn't mention it, neither did they. They soon had their honored guest equipped with tea, sandwiches, biscuits and all the tasty treats they could offer. Severus accepted it all with a stolid politeness.

Severus tried to assess their well-being based on their appearances. Bellatrix looked as wild and disheveled as she always did since her escape from Azkaban, but Severus didn't really care about her. He moved his attention to the Malfoys. Draco was fairly well turned out in some gray robes and his hair was at least combed. Other than that, the skin around his eyes was tinged with blue tones, perhaps indicative of lack of rest, and his eyes were a little bloodshot. Lucius wasn't looking anywhere near as good in person. His cheeks were flushed and his face was bloated, from his excessive drinking Severus thought, and, though his hair wasn't as untamed as his sister-in-law's, still it seemed as though it could use a good brushing. Narcissa, on the other hand, looked as gorgeous as ever; she always appeared as though she had just spent two hours in front of her dressing table, and she probably always had. She was attired in a fitted green satin gown, adorned with many elegantly placed flourishes and flounces. Her honey-blonde hair was smooth and shiny, every gold and amber strand lying in its proper place. Her face was seamless and unblemished – flawless, really - probably covered in the most expensive creams and powders that gold could buy. She was decked out with a full set of matching silver jewelry, inlaid with emeralds to accentuate her shimmering robes. Even if the world was ending, Narcissa would show up for it looking like a million galleons.

"How are you enjoying your summer holiday?" Lucius asked.

Severus used a spindly finger to push back a lank portion of his black hair and a look of suppressed amusement stole across his face as he said, "I'm bored."

They laughed at this honest response and felt at ease with their companion once more. It was nice to know that there was at least one person who wouldn't abandon them.

"How are you doing?" Severus asked, his face serious again.

Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco exchanged loaded looks. Bellatrix was looking out of the window and seemed a bit oblivious to what was going on around her. She was this way most of the time of late.

"We're holding up, Severus," Narcissa said. "It's been hard since…since…"

"I know," he replied, wanting to save her the unpleasant need of saying it.

They were silent a moment. The room seemed heavy with things that shouldn't or couldn't be said.

Narcissa attempted to shift the direction of their thoughts and began, "Severus, I've been meaning to write you a letter, but I've been distracted lately. Since you're here I'll just ask you. If the Dark Lord permits it, when his anger has abated, will you help Draco complete his last term at Hogwarts? I mean, would you accept him next year after Easter so he can finish his education and graduate?"

Setting down his ginger biscuit he nodded, and addressing himself to Draco he said, "Of course. As soon as the Dark Lord allows it, you're more than welcome to return to school, Draco."

Draco nodded and said, "Thank you, Professor."

Draco knew he hadn't been fair to Professor Snape. In fact, Draco wanted to cringe when he remembered all the infantile things he'd said to him the night of Slughorn's Christmas party. He'd just been so upset about his dad being imprisoned, and he was terrified he wasn't going to complete his mission. His whole sixth year, when he remembered it - which he tried not to do - was an odd combination of hazy blurs and lucid images. The foggy fruitlessness of his time in classes and the evenings in his dormitory were divided with the stark clarity of the Room of Hidden Things, where he crooned those wretched spells at that accursed cabinet, and those stolen moments where he sat sobbing in a bathroom stall, confessing his fears into the ears of a dead girl.

"How's the resident Muggle?" Severus asked them rather abruptly.

"It's fine," Lucius answered him. He didn't even try to mask his bitterness when he added, "I'm sure It's thrilled to find Its circumstances so greatly enriched of late. This must be a palace compared to Its last place of residence. Large meals, soft bed, luxurious accommodations, what more could any mudblood ask?"

Severus noticed the absence of feminine pronouns and couldn't decide who he felt sorrier for, his old friends or the poor creature currently in their care. He couldn't help pitying the Malfoys, though he knew they hardly deserved it. It was patent to him how acutely abused they must feel by being put in this position as guardians of a muggle.

"Could you speak to him, Severus?" Narcissa suddenly asked, her voice both urgent and also plaintive. "We don't dare broach it, lest he think we're unwilling to carry out his requests. But if you asked him for us, he would listen. I'm certain."

"I'm sorry, Narcissa," he apologized, at sea. "Ask him what?"

In a tone that clearly implied she thought him dense, she clarified, "To _remove_ It from our home. To take It someplace _else_ to live, someplace more…appropriate,"

And after she said this, Severus thought her meaning should have been apparent to begin with. All three of the Malfoys, and even Bella, were looking at him now, their eyes gleaming with unmasked hope. Severus was still taken aback by this request.

"Where do you think he _should_ take her?" he asked, genuinely curious to know what they would say.

"Does it really matter?" Lucius asked. "It doesn't belong _here_. Perhaps he could take It to London and find a home for It with some other Muggles, the way Dumbledore did."

"I doubt the Dark Lord will ever be willing to leave her anywhere on her own. And I especially doubt he'd being willing to leave her in the care of Muggles," Severus told them. He could see the dismay in their eyes.

"He could take her to live with another Death Eater," Bellatrix suggested. Severus was surprised she hadn't spoken before now. He hadn't spent enough time in her company lately to notice how subdued she had become since the Potter incident. Without the grace of her Master to bask in, without a wand to wield, Bellatrix was empty.

"I'm sure the Dark Lord has other servants that would be willing to take her. Many of them don't have homes as old and as…unsullied as ours," Narcissa supplied. "Severus, our home isn't meant to house _mudbloods_. We…our ancestors…this isn't right, Severus," she finished, too upset to articulate anything more specific than this argument for her cause.

Severus wouldn't voice his real opinion aloud for a thousand galleons, but as he thought of Jane going to live with another Death Eater, he was quite repulsed by the notion.

He agreed whole-heartedly with Lucius and Narcissa that she didn't belong here. She never would. Severus, on the other hand, knew this to be the case for completely different reasons than the Malfoys. They could only see this from their own perspective. Lucius had even spoken a few moments before about how his manor must seem like paradise to the child, like she fancied herself staying in a five-star hotel. Severus understood that she probably saw it more like the proverbial gilded cage. She was a foreigner in a land of magic and wealth, lost in a wonderland maze of beauty, cruelty, and no traces of comforting familiarity. Her world was all cars, television, cinema, telephones and electricity. They weren't comparable to the world of magic that the Malfoys enjoyed. Severus didn't automatically think that the Muggle world was so much _less_ , just incontrovertibly _different_. While the Malfoys were revolted by the idea of her meandering through the sacred halls of their pristine home, courting ideas above her station perhaps, imagining herself their equal, Severus knew she would most likely consider this place to be an inescapable labyrinth of boredom and doom.

Sending her to stay with another Death Eater might change the scenery for her but not the sentiment. But Severus would not beseech the Dark Lord to move her somewhere else, even if they offered him unlimited access to Narcissa's greenhouse, which supported, he knew, some of the most valuable collections of rare magical plants in all of England. (He had always coveted the Malfoys their priceless flora for the potential potion ingredients.) In fact, if the Dark Lord consulted Severus, he had every intention of saying that, if he couldn't abide the thought of her living with Muggles, she should remain with the Malfoys.

There was a very good reason he had always been on such excellent terms with Lucius Malfoy. He wasn't a wholly evil person. He was conniving, cunning, duplicitous to a fault, very self-absorbed the majority of the time, but he was also principled. Severus knew that Lucius, for all of his failings, had certain redeeming features that the other Death Eaters lacked. For one thing he was a family man through and through, whereas many of the others wouldn't scruple to torture and kill their own "beloved" grandmothers if they thought for a second it would get them a better position with the Dark Lord.

Lucius had been schooled from an early age with the Codices of Fordyce, which was a collection of tomes written approximately five centuries ago that espoused a fundamental philosophy along the same lines as the 'For the Greater Good' rubbish that Grindewald utilized so effectively in his campaign against Muggles. Many pure-blood families in England made sure that, by the tender age of eight, their children could recite long passages of it to them by heart, which they often did of an evening for entertainment purposes. These sort of anti-muggle books were rampant in the abundant libraries of wealthy pure-bloods, each filled with graphic drawings of Muggles engaging in animalistic behaviors; children and adults sleeping piled up together in dirty nest-like heaps in a corner, always on the floor; pictures of them crawling around on hands and knees, naked, in bizarre pre-coital rituals; Severus had seen one, which he found highly amusing when he was fifteen, depicting a group of muggles, their faces shown in transports of unparalleled delight while they huddled in a muddy ravine playing with their own feces and flinging it at one another ' _for some jolly good fun_ ', the caption had read.

Despite his ignorance and his tragic greed for power, Lucius was almost angelic when contrasted with his co-workers. Severus knew that as miserable as Jane would inevitably be here at Malfoy Manor, Lucius, along with his wife and son, wouldn't lose control of their tempers and physically damage her. And though they would indubitably assault her verbally, he doubted they would find seemingly innocuous ways to psychologically terrorize her. At least he hoped. And he also knew that neither Lucius nor Draco would ever contemplate her in a highly hypocritical, salacious way.

"I believe you're looking at this from the wrong angle," Severus said. "She has the potential to become a valuable asset to our master. If that turns out to be the case, then how she lives will be important to him. You'll have the chance to redeem yourselves in his eyes by providing her a home where she can work for him."

"Severus," Lucius said, clearly shocked by his remarks, "we don't care how valuable It may or may not be to him. It _has_ to go. Whatever abnormal "powers" that little freak may possess, It's not a pure-blood nor even a witch. It's too vile to stay _here_ , full stop."

Severus sighed. "Lucius, I can see how hard this must be for you." He could tell by the looks on their faces they seriously doubted the truth of that statement. Though it hadn't been brought up by any of them for a long time now – leastways, not to his _face_ \- Lucius and Narcissa were very aware of Severus's upbringing.

Bellatrix, on the other hand, had no reservations about throwing it in his face as she jeered, " _Please_ , Severus, don't make me laugh. I've seen that hovel you live in, and you can't possibly see how tasteless this is for us."

"I can't see why _you_ care at all, Bella," he swiftly retorted. "How's your husband doing? I hear he has a bad case of the shivers."

"He's fine, thank you for asking," she returned, thoroughly unabashed by his attempts to shame her into caring for the husband she'd abandoned.

Severus looked at Lucius and Narcissa. They seemed so despondent now that he hadn't agreed to intercede with the Dark Lord on their behalf. He wished he could ease their suffering, but knew, at this point, they were beyond the sort of help they were seeking. The Dark Lord wasn't a forgiving person - he might decide to punish them for years.

They were quiet again for a while.

Severus was disheartened by the Malfoys' attitude. He wished there was some way to make them see her differently. Perhaps he should show them his box.

"I brought some things for her," he said.

"You brought some things for whom?" Lucius asked.

"I brought some things for _her_ ," he stated. " _Jane_."

"What sort of things?" Bellatrix asked suspiciously. "I hope you're not saying you brought some filthy Muggle rubbish into this house."

"It is Muggle, but it's not filth, Bella. They're necessities," he explained.

"Severus, we're perfectly capable of providing all of Its necessities," Lucius said with ill-disguised alarm.

"If she is truly impervious to _all_ magic, you're not."

This was too terrible, Narcissa thought. Had he actually had the audacity to bring some items of a Muggle nature into their home?

Severus stood up, set his box on the chair he had been occupying, and opened it. He pulled out some bottles made of plastic.

"These are some medicines for her," he explained, as he began setting them on the table. "None of these will suffice if she's gravely ill or injured of course. If anything of that nature were to occur, I hope you'll send for me at once.

"This medicine is a mild pain reliever and it will also alleviate a _mild_ fever," he said pointing to the writing on the bottle.

Their curiosity got the better of them at this point, and they began picking the bottles up to inspect them.

"What's this one for?" Draco asked, holding his bottle up.

"That one is for an upset stomach. Remember that if she does begin to complain of abdominal pains, keep an eye on her. If she doesn't start feeling better after a couple of hours, or if she's crying a lot and acting as though she's in excruciating agony, send for me straight away. If she needs to be hospitalized for some reason, I'll go with you."

Narcissa and Lucius began to realize that their old friend was concerned for them and truly did mean well. He was completely right, of course, when he told them they couldn't provide all of her basic necessities since magic wouldn't work on her. It just hadn't occurred to them until he started showing them the Muggle healing 'medisinine'.

Narcissa held up a bottle and asked, "What's this one for?"

"Allergies."

"What are they?" she asked.

Severus had to think for a moment, to come up with a word she would understand. Finally he settled on, "Hayfever."

"Oh," she said and gazed at the bottle with wonder.

"You'll want to be careful with that. It has soporific effects, so don't give it to her before she's supposed to slip away, or it will put her to sleep.

"All of these medicines are to be dispensed in certain amounts, exactly like healing potions."

He showed them the panel on the back with the dosing index and began explaining it to Narcissa and Lucius.

Bella was trying to open one of the bottles to see what the Muggle medisinine looked like. She tried twisting the lid, pulling it off, and then she began to bang it loudly and roughly against the table with no regard for damaging its contents.

"For Morgana's sake! This stupid Muggle bottle is broken or something! It won't open!" she exclaimed over the thumping noises.

His lip curled in obvious disdain, Severus reached swiftly over, plucked it from her inept grasp and, his voice drenched with derision, told her, "You can't open the lid because it's _child_ proof, Bellatrix."

She lost interest at this point and left the room.

It hardly mattered to the Malfoys. She wasn't doing anything to help them with the mudblood anyway. For three days after she was spanked, Bellatrix had taken her every meal so she could spend a few minutes watching her stand over the table to eat, as Jane wasn't able to sit down. Bella had issued banal jokes, and laughed heartily at them all, and as soon as Jane was healed enough to take a seat for her meals, Narcissa, Lucius and Draco had resumed all the catering duties.

After he was finished explaining the proper dosing procedures he showed them a box of bandages. "For _minor_ cuts and scrapes only. Anything too deep and she'll need the hospital.

"This," he said, pulling out a small tube, "is an antiseptic salve. Just a small amount will be adequate. I also suggest you make sure to wash any abrasions with plenty of soap and hot water."

Narcissa took the tube from him and wondered at this receptacle. All of her salves came in small lidded pots. This was like a toothpaste tube. How odd.

Next, he pulled out a small case and opened it to reveal a row of shiny metal instruments.

"It's a manicure set," he told them.

He pulled out one of the tools and manipulated a lever until it was protruding from the rest of it at a minute angle. He held out his hand and showed them how it worked by clipping a little portion of his fingernail away.

Narcissa was amused by this and couldn't help laughing at it. She used a special spell for cutting her and her family's fingernails. How clever of Severus, she thought. It seemed he thought of everything. He proved this again when he pulled out another box.

His face was going beet red as he handed it to Narcissa.

"This is something for women. I know that witches have a lot of different ways to deal with this…sort of thing…by magic, but, er-

"Well it's just…" he didn't seem able to complete his sentence.

Narcissa looked at the box and turned it over a few times, reading the various panels. It was clear to her it was meant exclusively for women, but she still wasn't sure what it was for. Draco took it from her and started to open it.

"That's - no Draco, don't open it!" Severus said, getting more flustered every second. He took the small box out of Draco's hands and dropped it back into the bigger box resting on the chair.

"It's for women," he said sheepishly.

"Yes, you said that already," Lucius reminded him.

"Never mind, if you just give it to Jane, I'm sure she'll know…" he trailed off, looking as though something very shocking had just occurred to him.

 _Would_ she know? What if she hadn't begun yet? How educated was she about such matters? Oh, God! He'd been stupid to bring it for her, but how could he not? As embarrassing as it was, he needed to make sure that Narcissa at least knew what it was, in case Jane didn't.

"It's for her…time…her, you know…her _monthly_ time," he said, giving Narcissa what he hoped was a significant look. She looked blank. "You know, her…cycle?"

She finally cottoned-on at the word 'cycle'. Then her face began to glow pink as understanding came over her.

"Right. Thank you, Severus," she said quietly. "You think of everything."

"What is it?" Lucius asked, quite stupidly Narcissa thought.

Eager to protect her son from this unsuitable topic, she said, "I'll tell you later, dear." And she gave him a significant look of her own.

Fortunately Lucius took the hint and decided to drop it for the time being.

Severus next produced some books and some more small boxes.

"These are some materials for her to draw and color with," he said.

They picked these up and began to explore the contents of the boxes and flip through the pages of the books. These items were the most curious of all. They didn't really know what to say about them, so they just set them aside.

The Dark Lord walked into the sitting room and he had Jane with him. She was wearing another ill-fitting dress that had once belonged to Lucius's deceased aunt, and they noticed her face was splotchy and she had the shiny remnants of what had probably been tears on her cheeks.

She followed the Dark Lord across the room, looking around at everything but them, as per usual.

The Dark Lord stopped in front of them, looked at Severus, and asked, "What brings you here, Severus?"

"I was dropping off some basic necessities for Jane, my lord."

"What sort of basic necessities?" he inquired.

Severus showed him the things he'd brought and explained what some of the medicines were for. This pleased the Dark Lord to no end, though he kept his face neutral as showing enthusiasm for anything muggle wouldn't be proper.

When Severus was done the Dark Lord turned to the Malfoys and told them, "You can't keep Jane locked up anymore."

Though it hardly seemed possible, their pale faces grew whiter as they contemplated his command for a minute.

Then Lucius and Narcissa began to protest at the same time.

Lucius started to say, "My lord, what if It tries to run away?"

While Narcissa began, "What if It falls down a staircase?"

"Quiet," he hissed. They both fell instantly silent.

He looked at them in disgust for a few moments until he saw the appropriate fear replacing the anger in their eyes.

"You'll make sure she doesn't run away," he said, looking at Lucius, and then he turned to Narcissa and continued, "or fall down the stairs, or any other undesirable thing. From now on she's to stay with you three during the day and you can lock her in her room while she sleeps. She'll eat with you too.

"She's going to be a part of your cozy, precious family," he told them. He was quite pleased to see the blush creeping across their cheeks. Their love for one another disgusted him.

"I'm leaving now. I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow, Severus," he said.

"Yes, my lord," Severus replied. This was the closest the Dark Lord could come to saying 'goodbye'.

When he was gone Lucius was so overcome with despair he went to the sideboard for an afternoon drink, Narcissa sat down, quite heavily it seemed to Severus, and Draco went to the window and gazed out of it blankly. Jane wandered to the table, began to nibble a biscuit, and she lightly caressed a coloring book.

"These are for you, Jane," Severus told her.

Jane looked at Severus fully. He didn't know it, but he was the only person she'd looked directly in the eye since she had come here.

She studied him for a few moments and then, through a mouthful of biscuit, said, "Fank you, Mr. Snape."


	9. An Object of Ridicule and Solidarity

**Posted:** 11/26/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **An Object of Ridicule and Solidarity**

 **20** **th** **June, 1998**

Jane was the quintessential Muggle. Her every word and action served to solidify the Malfoys' long-held beliefs that non-magical people are closer to primate than human. It would have been quite gratifying, if it had not been so _bloody_ _annoying_.

Once the Dark Lord told them they had to let her out of the room, their troubles were magnified tenfold. Jane was sly. Face-to-face she was fine; she was polite, spoke to all of them respectfully - albeit in a very sullen manner - she never disobeyed any direct orders that they saw fit to give her, and as long as they had their eyes on her she didn't get up to anything. But the second they turned their backs on her, she disappeared.

Most of the doors in their manor were not equipped with locks, as it had never seemed necessary - before. After all, they were perfectly capable of casting anti-intruder spells in the unlikely event that any room needed safeguarding. The main reason they put her in the purple room was because it was one of the few spare rooms in the east wing that _did_ have a lock on the door. They did not even have a completely foolproof way to ensure she would not wander into the main or west wing of the manor. She never did though; whether this was because she had no curiosity about the rest of their house, or because of some animalistic sense of self-preservation, she never strayed that far from them. She did however thoroughly explore the third floor of the east wing.

It rankled Lucius and Narcissa unremittingly that at least once a day, but usually more often, they had to drop whatever they were doing to go search for her. With the help of their nosy voluble portraits, they would wander from room to room calling for her. "Poisson," they had taken to calling her - a snide allusion to her protuberant eyes and bloated mouth. To their amusement she had begun responding to it.

"We really ought to hang a bell around Its neck, for Merlin's sake!" Lucius groused, completely serious. And only the thought of their master's displeasure prevented him from carrying through with it.

Eventually they would find her, but they could never tell what she might be up to. Many times she would be in Draco's old nursery, which they had converted to a school-room when he was older. She might be sitting on the light beech wood floor looking through the brightly illustrated children books, or she might be playing with an old discarded toy, of which there were many. Sometimes they found her standing at the chalkboard, drawing childish pictures of flowers, butterflies, ponies, and kittens. As they had a surfeit of space, with at least ten rooms that were seldom used, just filled with costly, superfluous furniture and decorations, they often located her in one of these. Sometimes she would be going through the drawers of a bureau, sometimes she might be standing in front of a portrait, avidly listening to it while it berated her for being a mudblood, and once they finally found her curled up in the bottom of a wardrobe. _Napping_.

Each time, every day, they would scold her in the rudest language they could think of, which was quite rude. They would issue empty threats about locking her up again or sending her to bed without supper or giving her a long, hard spanking. Sometimes, out of sheer desperation, they might threaten to tell the Dark Lord about her misconduct. But it was all nonsense and she seemed to know this. The Dark Lord had not only forbidden them from locking her up, depriving her of nourishment, or physically hurting her in any capacity, even for the sake of discipline, they doubted he had ever once told her that she had to obey them.

Each time she was rebuked she would stand there with blank eyes and an infuriating, petulant pout on her red fish-lips. She would mutter "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir," and if they demanded she promise not to do it again, she readily offered up the obligatory response - and then she would steal away again at the first available opportunity.

She also had a deplorable lack of personal hygiene. She would go for days without bathing, and when they could no longer stand the stink of her for one more hour, Narcissa would march her to her bathroom, fill the tub to the brim with near-scalding water - laced plentifully with redolent oils and bath salts - and argue with her until she agreed to wash.

"I's just 'avin' a baf!" Jane would yell, tears streaming down her face, as though passionately convinced she was being asked to do something utterly absurd.

"When did you last bathe, Poisson?" Narcissa would ask.

"Las' week!"

"Get in the bath this instant, you despicable troglodyte, or I'll have Lucius and Draco come in here, strip your clothes off, and throw you into the tub."

This was the threat she always had to resort to get compliance. It was not a valid one; Cissa would never put her husband or son through such a base ordeal, but it always managed to scare the barbarian into bathing. Thank Morgana.

Jane had a number of other filthy habits as well. They were the sort of things Narcissa had managed to break Draco of by the time he was five. She not only picked her nose, but they'd also witnessed her eating its contents; she used her sleeves in place of napkins; would belch loudly, especially at the dinner table; spilled food all over herself, the table, and the floor when she ate; frequently abandoned her cutlery altogether to pick at her meat and vegetables with her grimy fingers; she chewed her food with her mouth open and accompanied this unsavory display with loud smacking noises. But the worst of it all was when she polluted their breathing spaces with her flatulence.

Holy Hecate, how they _hated_ her!

Although they were not allowed to punish her, every time they had to watch her repulsive manners they barraged her with insults and admonishments. Between the three Malfoys and Bellatrix, she must have been told at least thirty times a day that she was: gross, a mudblood, stupid, a mudblood, much too melanous to be allowed, a mudblood, a cripple, a mudblood, completely worthless, and, oh yes, a mudblood. Besides these generic abuses Narcissa, sometimes Lucius, and occasionally even Draco would try explaining to her about things like handkerchiefs, table manners, the appropriate times and places for releasing bodily gases, covering the mouth when one needed to cough or sneeze, and the importance of keeping oneself clean. It didn't do any good. It seemed Jane was as impervious to criticism as she was to magic.

She was constantly fidgeting and moving. She had an excess of energy.

"I's needin' fresh air and eserzize!" she would tell them, whenever Lucius or Narcissa asked her if she could possibly hold still for more than three seconds.

Finally, making sure they obtained the Dark Lord's permission, Narcissa managed to find a pair of boots that fit her, nominally, and they started taking her outside for a few hours each day.

Narcissa liked to spend a lot of time in her conservatory and greenhouse anyway. Draco enjoyed riding his broomstick around the expansive wood that edged the manor and surrounded their abundant property. Lucius had a favorite patch of shade under an elm tree where he liked to sit during mild afternoons while he read books and drank hard lemonade.

Jane would ramble all over the lush gardens, smelling the flowers and making herself little bouquets. She explored the woods, soaking her sleeves and bodice whilst trying to catch tiny fish from the streams, and she continuously got stuck up the same tree from which an extremely reluctant Draco always had to rescue her. Sometimes she would follow Narcissa around the greenhouse, humming softly while she watched her tend her magical plants. They must have seemed quite exotic to Jane and, when Narcissa allowed, she even helped with menial tasks.

Jane, unlike the Malfoys, grew more sun-baked each day. And though she ripped the delicate, expensive fabrics of her borrowed gowns while she played, and stained them terribly with dirt and grass, they saw it as an equitable exchange as she seemed less temperamental and restless when she was allowed to wander around the grounds.

On sultry afternoons and balmy evenings the Malfoys, with Jane ever in tow, often retreated to a pretty corner of the courtyard that had lovingly been christened "the Nook" by some quirky ancestor. The Nook was tucked up beside the cool porticos of the courtyard and the outer glass wall of the conservatory. It was adorned with a semi-circle fountain built into the wall of the manor and a raised flowerbed had been cut into the flagstones. An old willow flourished in the center, surrounded by an assortment of fragrant perennials, and this large tree provided them with ample shade in the cozy haven. Each successive mistress of Malfoy Manor had updated and improved upon this cherished corner of the courtyard. Cissa had found some tiered plant stands that complemented the table, benches and chairs, and these intricately wrought stands supported potted flowers and herbs. There were even a few seed dispensers that, combined with the fresh water of the fountain, managed to attract a wide assortment of birds. The Malfoys mostly read the paper or books, while Jane entertained herself in different ways - some less irritating than others. She would often take the box of chalk that Severus had brought for her and sit on the wide flat stones sketching her puerile pictures.

Although Narcissa would never own it, she secretly liked Jane's drawings; they weren't masterpieces by any standard, but they still managed to be…pleasing. She had to study them for a while before she could define what it was that made them so. They were usually whimsical scenes: bright blue skies filled with curly clouds and a vivid spiraling sun shining down on a green landscape, which Jane speckled with bright flowers, trees, butterflies, and little animals. Sometimes she would just draw a single over-sized subject, a flower usually or perhaps a butterfly. Whatever she sketched, they were deceptive in their simplicity. Naricssa noticed that the lines were exacted with clean consistency, and the shapes had a satisfying symmetry. Jane always added clever details, complex micro-designs, and endowed them with coordinated color schemes. Whenever Narcissa noticed that Jane had completed one, which usually took her a good hour, she would find an excuse to walk by it so she could get a peak at the newest unique creation. Once or twice she noticed Lucius and Draco standing beside them as well, furtively glancing at them. It made her feel better about her own shameful interest in the mudblood's drawings. If Bellatrix happened across one she would use her boots to smudge it into oblivion. And, as usual, Jane would cry. She cried all the time.

"The Dark Lord wants us to take Poisson to London next week," Lucius said, setting down his book and sipping some of his wine.

It was still a couple of hours until dusk and he and Narcissa were in the Nook enjoying some after dinner drinks. Jane was laying belly-down on the wide lip of the fountain, lazily chasing the slippery fish around, and Draco was out for another ride on his broom. Nobody cared what Bellatrix was doing.

"Where in London does he want us to take It?" Narcissa asked, having to restrain her excitement at the prospect of finally getting out of the manor.

"He has given me a list of people he wishes for Poisson to see, so we will be staying at the Leaky Cauldron for at least a few days. He is also having Nott meet us there, to help us watch It."

"Why does he want Nott to help us watch It?" Narcissa asked.

"I think it's to do with us being in London. If It tried running away from here - well, to use a figure of speech - it is doubtful It would be able to get far. In London It will have access to transportation and It may know other Muggles that can offer It shelter.

"After we have shown her most of the people on the list, Thicknesse is going to escort her around the Ministry for a day or two to see some members of the Wizengamot, and certain employees as well. Once Thicknesse is finished, we will bring It back here. He…" He hesitated for a moment and then said, "He wants us to buy Poisson some new clothes."

"What in the name of Circe is wrong with the ones It's wearing?"

Lucius shook his head a little and emitted a low noise of confused disgust from the back of his throat.

"Well they don't really fit well…for one thing. He also mentioned that they are old."

" _Old_?" she asked in disbelief, "Did you tell him how thoroughly It ruins every dress It wears?"

"Yes, Narcissa. He knows. He has asked me innumerable questions about Its behavior and habits. He has asked me what sort of food It prefers, and - and how It likes to entertain Itself. He even asked, apropos of nothing, whether I think It knows how to tell time. I told him I doubt It knows how to read the _alphabet_ _,_ let alone a clock. Next he will expect me to keep notes on how frequently It has a bowel movement," he muttered bitterly.

In truth, Lucius was a bit unsettled by how interested the Dark Lord seemed to be with Jane. It was like watching a manticore become enraptured with a baby bunny. If the bunny were bespectacled and frowsy, rather than fluffy and cute. But still…

"I told him all about Its impoverished knowledge of basic etiquette, and how the only part of Its anatomy that It bothers keeping clean are Its teeth."

Uncharacteristically, Jane _did_ take care to brush her teeth - frequently.

"Too old," Narcissa repeated, utterly baffled. "Why does he even care about Its clothes?" Her question was mainly meant to be rhetorical, just a random offering to the warm evening air, but Lucius said, "He described them as antediluvian."

Lucius and Narcissa entertained their separate thoughts without speaking for a few minutes. Then something wonderful occurred to Cissa.

"If we are going to be in Diagon Alley… Do you think you and Draco should purchase some new wands?"

Looking a bit sad, Lucius shook his head and said, "He said specifically that Draco and I are not to purchase wands."

Cissa felt a hard lump form in the back of her throat, though she managed to keep her face completely composed, and she used some wine to swallow it down. When she was sure she could speak again, without any sign of emotion, she asked, "What does he expect us to tell people about It?"

Lucius sighed heavily at this conundrum and said, "I don't think he gives a damn _what_ we say about It, as long as it is not the truth. And I have been racking my mind all day, trying to think of a plausible explanation for It, but I'm coming up empty."

Narcissa saw easily what was troubling Lucius and shared in his distress. The idea of toting that ignorant, vulgar, swarthy mudblood around the shops of Diagon Alley, with the chance of meeting up with some of their inquisitive contemporaries, was an uncomfortable one. People, _respectable_ people, might want to know who Jane was and why the Malfoys had her.

"Well, we'll think of something, dear. You should not trouble yourself unnecessarily about it," she said. She placed her hand over his and gave it a gentle squeeze. He turned his hand over, and caressed her palm with his own for a moment.

He knew his wife was right. Whatever they said would seem odd, and by this point it hardly mattered. Everybody knew that they were deeply allied with the Dark Lord and that he was using their manor for his headquarters. There were not that many wealthy pure-blood families left in England, but in the past the Malfoys had been, through their diplomatic self-interest, on excellent terms with them all. Lucius and Narcissa had learned that while many of their coevals openly proclaimed their belief in the Dark Lord's principles, they did not consider wearing a mask and actually joining him to be a well-bred activity. Other than a few who were Death Eaters themselves, essentially all of their former acquaintances had kept their distance since Lucius was sent to Azkaban. The Malfoys were in nobody's good books these days.

It had actually been a dreadful disappointment to Narcissa when every one of her "friends" had cut her off after Lucius went to prison. Women she had known for years, most of whom were her old classmates - and all of them by varying degrees her relations - suddenly stopped owling her invitations for teas, suppers, card-playing dates, and Potion Parties. She had gone through her pregnancy with Draco at the same time as some of them, raised Draco with their children, spent holidays at their manors, and taken countless shopping trips to Paris with them. She had even come to regard a couple of them as substitute sisters in the absence of her own; what with one in prison and the other completely deranged.

The stigma she had suffered after Bella was tried and sentenced to Azkaban had been of short duration and quite mild. After all, Lucius had managed to convince the right people he had been Imperio'ed. It had been so embarrassing for him to pretend he had been overpowered by a spell of _submission_ , but as it was the only available alternative to _prison_ the choice had been a relatively easy one to make.

All of her friends knew that she and Bella had not been spending much time together prior to Bella's incarceration. To Narcissa's dismay, she'd had to stand by and watch as her sister grew more and more fanatical about the pure-blood agenda, gallivanting around in a mask instead of making a home for her husband and giving him a family. Narcissa often thought it was their middle-sister's perfidy that had driven Bella to her indecent extreme.

Narcissa turned away from these dark memories and came back to the more pleasant prospect of a journey to London. It was a shame that Lucius and Draco would not be able to procure new wands, but least they would have a small reprieve from their house-arrest.

She and Lucius spent a while discussing the people on the list the Dark Lord had given to Lucius.

"I think the Boothbys go to Lasandra's Tea Room every Wednesday, don't they? They used to anyway," Narcissa said.

"Do you think the Abbotts still attend the weekly potion demonstrations held at Botania's Brewery?" Lucius asked.

"Botania's does not hold those anymore," Cissa told him.

She saw Draco flying back from his ride and pointed him out to Lucius. He swiftly descended and made a graceful landing and dismount. Narcissa started to pour him a glass of iced pumpkin juice but he told her he would prefer the wine. Then he borrowed her wand and lit a cigarette.

Jane joined them at the table, so Narcissa gave her the glass of juice. "Fanks," she mumbled, ever polite.

They told Draco about the journey to London they would soon be taking. They were going to have to go by train. Muggle transportation was a necessary evil.

Unless, "Can you travel by Floo, Poisson?" Draco asked her.

She shook her head.

"You have tried it before, have you?" Lucius wanted to know. "With Dumbledore?"

The Malfoys were looking at her but she was leaning back in her cushioned seat, looking at the sky. Instead of speaking she simply nodded.

Bellatrix came out of the conservatory door at that point and sat down with them. She poured herself a glass of wine and began to study Jane with an expression akin to one she would have displayed were she looking at a steaming pile of dog droppings.

Jane noticed this and sat up, looking rather uncomfortable.

"We are going to London next week," Lucius told his sister-in-law with the air of one resigned to getting an unpleasant task out of the way.

"Where are we going?" Bella asked tonelessly.

"I am sorry. Allow me to clarify. Narcissa, Draco, and I are going to London next week. The Dark Lord is having us take Poisson here," he gestured to the dirty child seated across the table from him, "to Diagon Alley."

"I want to come, too, Lucius," Bellatrix said, sitting up a little. "I want to get a new wand as well."

"Well, Draco and I are not getting new wands," he related acrimoniously. "And you are not invited."

"Why doesn't He want _me_ to go?" Bellatrix asked, obviously a bit hurt at being excluded, but mostly trying to cover this by acting indignant. Bella did not actually want to go to London and be separated from her precious master, but it upset her to feel that he no longer thought he could rely on her.

"Ask him yourself," Lucius replied.

He knew she wouldn't though, and that was why he felt comfortable lying. The Dark Lord had indicated to Lucius that he did not care whether Bellatrix accompanied them or not. Therefore, Lucius had gone ahead and made the decision that she should be left behind. He detested his sister-in-law almost as much as he detested Jane. She had belittled him mercilessly after he had been stripped of his wand; and from what Narcissa had implied, Bella had shown nothing but complete indifference about whether or not their son would live long enough to be reunited with Lucius, once the Dark Lord had ordered Draco to kill Dumbledore. The only pleasure he, or his wife and son, received from Bella these days was watching her make Jane miserable. He and his wife never really discussed Bella's shortcomings, as it was a very sensitive subject to Narcissa, but he could plainly see that his wife held little love for her irascible sister.

Having finished her pumpkin juice, Jane stood up and headed to the fountain once more. Bellatrix was watching her with a murderous gaze.

Suddenly a wasp swooped in front of Jane and she stopped and took a few steps back, clearly frightened of it. The Malfoys saw a wicked grin spread over Bella's face as she reached over and snatched Cissa's wand from where it was lying on the table. Casting a simple spell, Bella captured the little thing, and as though a string were connecting the insect to the tip of Cissa's wand, she started manipulating the wasp to dance around the child.

They all began to laugh while they watched Jane throw her arms over her head in transparent alarm; she made clumsy attempts to dodge it. Bella was in her element and she maneuvered it around quite maliciously, waving the insect, stinger side out, all around her head and face, no matter which way Jane turned.

Jane began to cry and call out for help. In her panic she did not seem to realize that Bella was actually her tormentor, not the wasp. This of course made it seem twice as funny to all of them.

Finally, probably a combination of her leg, her drooping gown and ill-fitting footwear, and her hysteria, Jane tumbled down to the flagstones. She managed to catch herself with her hands and so prevented her face from actually slapping against the hard rock. However, her glasses had been dislodged.

Suddenly, worried that Jane might be hurt too badly, Narcissa retrieved her wand from her sister's grasp and released the wasp, for Bellatrix did not realize the game may have slipped into a danger zone.

Jane pulled herself into a sitting position, tears and snot running unchecked, her lower lip aquiver. She pulled her skirt up and revealed a scraped and bloody knee.

Bellatrix began to laugh gleefully at this sight, but the Malfoys were not as amused by Jane's blood as she was. They jumped up and went to kneel by Jane's side.

"It's alright," Narcissa said, trying to soothe her. "It is only a small scratch, Poisson. Settle down now."

The Malfoys exchanged worried glances. What if she _had_ realized that Bella was the one harassing her? What if she told the Dark Lord they had not helped her and showed him her little injury? As horrible as it might be, they were not positive if their master would see fit to torture them again over this nasty mudblood's cut. They were on pins and needles with him as it was.

"Perhaps you need some cake," Lucius offered tentatively when she continued to cry violently while examining her knee.

Tempting her with sweets didn't seem to make a difference. Lucius picked up her glasses and they all saw that there was a large crack over one of the lenses. Jane seemed to grow even more distraught by this sight.

He handed them to Narcissa and she swiftly repaired them. "There you are, Poisson. They are as good as new."

Jane put them back on her face but did not seem cheered in the least, nor anywhere closer to calming down.

"Let's go inside and clean you up," Narcissa said. And to Lucius and Draco she said, "Help her up."

Draco and Lucius each grabbed a small arm and easily brought her to feet. She kept her head hung however and continued her silly weeping.

"It's not that bad, is it?" Narcissa tried to reason with her. "There is no need to be upset over something so trivial. We will use those clever Muggle things that Severus brought for you."

"Then we can play a game if you like," offered Draco. He was terrified of being under the Cruciatus Curse again. "I have a lot of card and board games, Poisson."

Jane wiped her nose on her sleeve, sniffled again, and said in a small, hopeful way, "Can we's?"

Draco, irritated a bit that she had taken the bait, nodded stiffly and tried to smile. It had probably come off like a grimace. Oh, well. At least she was trying to stop crying now.

As they took Jane upstairs and pretended to help her clean and plaster her miniscule wound (for none of them would actually risk _touching_ her blood) Narcissa thought that at least one good thing had come of Jane's being with them. She united them; gave them something to discuss, criticize, laugh at, and a reason to interact in new ways. It was a paltry sort of consolation, she knew. But, at this point, Narcissa would take whatever she could get.


	10. Diagon Alley Part 1

**Posted:** 11/27/15

 **Beta:** theartfulscribbler

 **Diagon Alley Part 1**

 **10** **th** **July, 1998**

Though Jane was a Muggle, her immunity to magic enabled her to see the Leaky Cauldron with the same ease as the Malfoys. Unlike the muckish Muggles surrounding them, she looked fully at the dingy pub and inn and headed for the entrance without as much as a confused blink. It was quite disturbing.

Lucius had booked the largest room on the highest floor, but it still failed to offer up the requisite standard of opulence and cleanliness to which he and his small family were accustomed to enjoying. The suite was dominated by a main sitting and dining room with three detached bedrooms. The furnishings were antiquated, in a shabby, rather than a majestic, way, and the bathrooms were practically the size of broom cupboards. On taking possession of it, they spent the first hour pointing out scuff marks on the hefty wooden floors and furniture, and then they drew one another's attention to the loose threads on the thick curtains and thin bedspreads and to the places where the rugs were unraveling. They even criticized the cheap quality of the wax which made up the candles.

Narcissa dithered for quite a while about whether they should actually unpack their trunks, for she thought perhaps it might be more sanitary if they just lived out of them for the duration of their stay, in what was surely a pest infested room. Lucius talked her out of this idea eventually, as the landlord, he said, for all his many, many faults as an innkeeper, must at least have had the sense to cast insect and rodent repelling spells around the suite.

Shortly after this agonizing decision had been made the door of the suite opened and Theodore Nott joined them. He had brought his son with him, Teddy Jr. The two small families greeted each other casually; the Malfoys and Notts had known each other their entire lives and as they were on assignment here for their master, they forewent the formalities.

Teddy was almost as tall as Draco and just as pale and thin, though his hair was brown like his father's. He had long thin front teeth that Draco had always thought made him look like a rabbit. Teddy was training to become a Death Eater, and he didn't bother to hide his interest in Jane. The first thing he did on entering the room was to locate her where she was sitting on the wide cushioned window seat, gazing raptly through the glass at the Muggle filled street below. He crossed the room to her and carefully looked her over with the same objectivity that he might have looked at an exotic animal in a cage.

He'd heard her discussed at length by his father and some of the Dark Lord's other servants. He knew his father had been honored by their master with the gracious privilege of penalizing the mudblood, and he also knew she was reported to be impervious to magic. Teddy examined her, confirming that she was just as homely as he'd been told, with her enormous glasses that almost took up half her face, her overlarge lips and eyes, her thick brows and mustache, and her short, wiry, blue-black hair; she was quite a bit smaller than he'd pictured her. Then he took out his wand and started casting some hexes and jinxes at her.

Draco went to stand next to his coeval, his eyes caressing the wand that Teddy was brandishing vainly at her.

"If the Cruciatus Curse won't work on her, I doubt those will," Draco said, sounding rather sad.

"What a freak," Teddy muttered.

"Yeah," Draco agreed, looking at her with unadulterated contempt.

"What's all over her face?" Teddy asked.

"Who the hell knows? Jam or something, probably. Watching It eat is like seeing a pig at a trough."

Teddy scowled at this unpleasant picture. "That bad, eh?"

"Oh, it's awful. Absolutely foul. We keep hoping the Dark Lord will decide to have It carved up like bacon, so, fingers crossed, right?"

"Yeah. Sure," Teddy agreed half-heartedly. "What can you really expect from a mudblood?"

He wasn't sure what to make of her, though he could understand why Draco seemed to hate her so passionately. If he and his dad and his grandmother had to care for a Muggle like some stinking pet, he'd probably resent her just as much. Teddy's father, who was a man who could take a sensible approach to just about anything it seemed, had impressed upon his son the use of her unusual power of spying, and had represented this gift in the best way, like a very useful tool the Dark Lord had serendipitously stumbled upon. So Teddy, who adored his father, mimicked this dispassionate perspective of her, but, instinctively, he didn't bother trying to rationalize with Draco.

They were standing about two paces from her having this conversation. She could have been a statue as far as they were concerned. Of course, as she didn't move or speak or show any response to them, she was doing a good job of imitating one.

"What are we going to tell people?" Teddy asked.

"My parents reckon we should say It's part of an advanced behavior study or something. Like we could hint around that we've volunteered to help out with some top secret experiment that's being conducted by an obscure branch of the Ministry. Perhaps," he said with a touch of despair.

"Wonder if anyone would actually swallow that," Teddy said in a dubious tone. "It's more creative than anything we've come up with, mind. We could only think of acting as though she's a sort of pet, like a novelty or something, but then we worried people might get the wrong impression. You know? Like she's…" he trailed off, unable to finish.

He didn't have to though.

"Yeah. Wouldn't want anyone thinking that. Don't see how anyone _could_ , but still, some people have filthy minds," Draco said.

Teddy laughed a bit. "That they do," he agreed. "You and your dad getting new wands this week?"

Draco just stood there for a moment, swallowing hard and trying to keep his emotions in check, but he could feel his face heating and knew his pale skin was coloring, giving him away. He found all he could manage was shaking his head.

"Tough break," Teddy responded, not really caring at all, but acting tactfully sympathetic like any proper Slytherin. His father had advised him not to taunt the Malfoys too badly about their low status with the Dark Lord.

Draco knew that Teddy was full of bollocks, of course. He'd been playing these "friendship" games his whole life and knew every rule and nuance of them.

"I'm starving," Teddy said, trying to break the tension.

Lucius and Nott started arguing over the sleeping arrangements.

It seemed that the Dark Lord had instructed that Jane not be allowed to sleep on her own while in London and nobody wanted to sleep with her, but somebody had to, and of the three bedrooms only one of them was equipped with two narrow beds. It was also the smallest room in the suite.

"I booked the suite across the hall for Teddy and myself and we should just share that," Theodore said. "As you and your family are accustomed to her, I think one of you should sleep in the same room with her. There's no need for all of us to be exposed to her."

"If the Dark Lord thought that my family and I were sufficient to guard her then he wouldn't have bothered having you meet us here, Nott," Lucius reminded him. "Now, I think that taking turns will be the most judicious way to settle this. We should trade off until we leave."

"That doesn't make sense, Lucius. If you're sleeping in the same room with her, then are Narcissa and Draco going to share a bed?"

The Malfoys pondered this for an uncomfortable moment and then Draco sighed and said, "I can take the sofa that night."

Lucius smiled and said, "See. Problem solved."

Nott, who had absolutely no intention of sleeping in the same room as a mudblood, was, rather reluctantly, about to pull rank on Malfoy, but it seemed that Jane had just realized what was being discussed. She jumped up from her window seat and came to the middle of the room and said, "I's ent sleepin' wif none of you's but Mrs. Malfoy."

"Shut up, mudblood," Lucius told her coldly. "This isn't up to you."

She stomped her good foot and crossed her arms. The Malfoys braced themselves for another colossal meltdown.

"Is too!" she yelled. "I's makin a _fuss_ 'bout it too!"

Nott and Teddy exchanged surprised looks.

"I's said I's ent sleepin' wif any men, and if you's be tryin' to makes me, I's - I's," she cast around for some viable threat, and seemed to settle for, "I's ent gonna bave once!"

"Merlin's beard, is she always this disrespectful?" Nott asked the Malfoys, and as an afterthought, taking in her soiled dress, face, and hands added, "And this filthy?"

Undignified, the three Malfoys groaned in unison.

"It's complicated, Nott," Lucius confessed embarrassedly. "It's usually quite passive. But It can be… _stubborn_ at times."

"Why don't you just put her over your knee?" he asked.

Arching one of his eyebrows and slightly curling his thin upper lip, Lucius returned, "Why don't _you_ just put It over _your_ knee?"

Nott was about to say that he most certainly would, but then he remembered the Dark Lord's stricture about them hurting her the first night he'd found her. Nott began to rub his brown and gray goatee as though contemplating a problem he hadn't realized would be so complicated to begin with.

Finally, with a look of triumph, he leaned down and spoke to Jane as though she were five. He even brought out his index finger to wag at her while he scolded, "Be quiet now, like a good girl, or you won't get any dessert after supper."

The Malfoys laughed fairly hard at this ridiculous attempt to bribe their stormy mudblood who, they knew, didn't have much of a sweet tooth.

Deciding she had better take matters into her own hands, Narcissa said, "If I agree to share a room with you Poisson, then you'll have to take a bath every morning, wash your hair _and_ every centimeter of your grubby skin, keep your face and hands clean throughout the day, exhibit better manners at meal times, and use your handkerchiefs to wipe your nose instead of your sleeves. Will you agree to do those things?"

Jane just stood there for a few moments with an empty look in her eyes, while she was apparently trying to decide whether this seemed like a fair exchange. Finally, she uncrossed her arms and gave a small nod.

"You'd better keep your end of the deal, you disgusting peon," Narcissa told her, sounding decidedly skeptical.

"I must say, I have a new appreciation for the…difficulties of your position," Nott said.

Lucius rolled his eyes and none of the Malfoys bothered saying anything. Nobody could appreciate how insupportable their situation was, nobody _at all._

After they'd made up their sleeping arrangements and finished settling in, Narcissa made Jane wash her face and hands, and then the two families took her downstairs for a light lunch. They chose a table in the corner of the dining room so they could give Jane an unhindered view of the room. Shortly after the food was brought to the table a small group of wizards sat down at a table close to their own and they were able to point out to her a man called Stansil Goodbell, and then they happily crossed him off the list.

The other diners were looking uncomfortably at the table where the Malfoys and Notts were sitting. Lucius in particular was attracting a number of unappealing looks. As it was no longer necessary for the identities of the Dark Lord's servants to be secret, Nott was drawing his fair share of uneasy attention as well.

Many of the Death Eaters were proudly displaying their Dark Mark like the highest of accolades, while others chose to keep it hidden, like an ace up the sleeve, and then flashed them when it was time to go in for the kill. The notorious icon never failed to inspire fear in decent wizards and witches. It opened doors, extracted favors, and, these day, cowed the hearts of those who had always most adamantly opposed the Pure-blood creed of superiority. A Dark Mark was a universal currency, more powerful than the shiniest bag of galleons, and twice as heavy. The whole magical community of England knew the Dark Lord was on top, and it was hard to find any hope that he wasn't going to remain in this crushing position for a long time yet. Any person brave enough or foolish enough, depending on how you looked at it, to offer resistance to the new administration disappeared in the night, and was never seen or heard from again.

Though the table where they sat was arousing discomfort and fear, the other patrons surrounding them simply tried to hurry through their meals in the most casual manner possible, before they scurried off to finish their shopping or go home.

Lucius felt his spirits lifting as he noticed the fleeting looks of dread his presence was creating in his fellow citizens. As nobody outside the circle of the Dark Lord's followers knew the truth about his miserable position inside the hierarchy, and nobody realized he had no wand, to the external world he was just as formidable as Nott.

He found himself checking his reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall beside the table. He looked awful. The normal pallor of his exceptionally handsome face had been usurped by a perpetually flushed puffiness, created by the excessive alcohol he needed to constantly consume these days in order to dull the ache of his diminished circumstances. His eyes were yellowed and blood-shot, and his white-blonde hair was looking straggly and limpid. He remembered his wife's futile attempts to run a comb through it before they came downstairs and Lucius now severely regretted not allowing her to complete this simple toilette. Lucius also realized that, save the large silver ring on his right middle finger bearing the emerald snake that was like a type of crest the Malfoys had adopted centuries ago, he wasn't even displaying his wealth with an assortment of gem encrusted finery. Lucius thought that, perhaps after dinner, he would go upstairs and spend some time grooming himself properly.

After they finished their leisurely meal, Narcissa, Draco, and Teddy took Jane into Diagon Alley, heading for Twilfitt and Tattings to have her measurements taken and order her some new clothes. Lucius promised his wife he would join her soon and headed upstairs, and Nott said he needed to go to Knockturn Alley to conduct a brief business transaction and he also voiced his intention of joining them shortly. So the three remaining guardians took their charge and headed for their destination, scanning the sparse shoppers for the other unsuspecting targets of their master's plans.

There were only five people on the list and the Malfoys and Notts were, all in all, quite confident that they would be able to find them all on this trip. Each one was a prominent member of the relatively small wizarding community. Most were either directly or indirectly involved with the politics governing the country. A few were wealthy Pure-bloods who, the Dark Lord felt, weren't cooperating as fully as they should be with the policies he was trying to put in motion. These disobliging souls were known to be using insalubrious language among their peers, servants, and even in a couple of cases, wink, wink, their children. Oh the Dark Lord had his spies, but he was hoping, with the help of Jane, he could gain deeper insights into these peoples private lives, and hearts, so he could steer these subversive fools in the right direction, without wasting anymore precious, pure blood.

Not that the Malfoys or Notts knew any of this, not directly. They had their suspicions of course, and these were fairly close to the truth, but the Dark Lord wasn't the sharing type. Honestly, it didn't take a genius to figure out why he wanted these individuals to be watched. Although they, and their families, were all cousins and acquaintances of the Malfoys, they weren't too fussed over what Jane could potentially unearth about them, thus sealing their possibly tragic fates. The Malfoys, especially, couldn't afford to care for anyone but themselves as far as they were concerned; they were just about drowning, and their blood status was currently the only floatation device at their disposal. Whatever befell their distant relations from this act of pointing them out to Jane, well, _c'est la vie_.

Narcissa didn't enjoy coming to Diagon Alley that much anymore. She had been a perennial patron here all her life, and so many times she had wished for it to be altered. She had always detested the rowdy people, so drably plebian, calling out coarsely to one another while their grubby brats cried and laughed and ran around unrestrainedly. There had been these boisterous street vendors, loudly advertising their indispensable wares, bartering and vulgar. The pure-bloods and half-bloods and mudbloods all bumping into each to other, perhaps even eating side by side; it was disgusting. She had felt rather invisible at times, uncertain if the people passing her realized she was so above them. It had seemed such a zoo to Cissa. But there had been this verve, a lively, cheerful tattoo that had been inconspicuous to her until it was absent. Now that Diagon Alley had been stripped of all the things she had always considered unappetizing, that palpable pulse had faded to a dull aching throb.

The patrons she saw these days were no longer noisy or brash, but rather bleak and gloomy. With tense, tight expressions they scampered from one shop to the next, eager to finish their transactions and go home to their families. There were no longer any reunited school chums sitting around the fountain, sharing the current news of their inane lives, lingering over a cup of tea. Hardly anybody brought their children here these days, and Cissa couldn't blame them. The eager, yet supremely innocent, vendors had been replaced by a new breed of cart-pushers. These seedy looking peddlers offered scant merchandise of a darker nature and cheaper quality than their predecessors, and when they looked at Narcissa she got the distinct impression that many were thinking of either robbing or disrobing her. Perhaps both in some cases. Bands of Snatchers, the dregs of half-blood society, fiercely pounded circuitous routes over the cobblestones and into the dead-ending side streets. Cissa had heard egregious rumors about what happened to any witch negligent enough to be caught on her own, come dusk. This sordid gossip added entirely new connotations to the word snatch.

There were other changes as well, cosmetic kinds. And as with anything that had to do with appearances, these bothered Cissa appreciably. She saw random bits of paper and all manner of detritus scattered over the streets and in the gutters; it was sickening, like some Muggle tenement.

Almost half the shops were empty now. Some had closed simply because the owners couldn't generate enough revenue to cover their overhead. Others had fled England, before Dumbledore had died that was, because the Dark Lord had closed off all the exits to prevent the Pure-bloods from skipping off to other, more peaceful countries, and to keep the mudbloods from escaping. Some of the shopkeepers had been killed or taken to Azkaban. More than a few of these had been the proprietors of bookstores, who hadn't adhered swiftly enough to the ban on Muggle-friendly literature. These stores were distinguishable from the others in two ways. They had been charred crispy, and as she walked by them Cissa saw through the windows that only cinders remained. The other thing that set them apart was the blazing red epithet that had been cast over the entrances: BLOOD TRAITORS. Nobody dared cast the countercharm to remove these glowing reprimands, though the crimson letters clashed garishly with the eyes.

Narcissa knew that no matter how long she lived, she would never understand why some people felt the masochistic need to stand up for the rights of Muggles. To be killed or imprisoned for such an inane and worthless cause seemed downright shameful to her. Why couldn't the idiots just keep their heads down, blend in, _survive_?

In Twilfitt and Tattings Narcissa instructed Jane to stand on a stool while a seamstress set a floating piece of measuring tape to span the insubstantial lengths of her arms, legs, and shoulders; then it began to measure the flimsy girths of her waist, upper arms and chest. Narcissa told the proprietor of the shop, a Mr. McBathers, to keep her sizes on record, in case she needed to make replacement orders for the robes Jane would inevitably wreck.

Mr. McBathers' eyebrows had disappeared under his mop of ginger hair on catching sight of Jane. Narcissa doubted he'd ever seen a more pathetic piece of rubbish in his robe shop. Let alone accompanied with anybody as affluent as Mrs. Malfoy. Cissa had felt her immaculate blood rushing to her cheeks, in the most unflattering way she was sure, and she held her breath until all danger had passed that the heavily mustached little man might comment on Jane's uncanny presence.

Normally Narcissa would have flourished in a clothing store, especially if she was given the prospect of a fresh project; but Jane didn't qualify as fresh or a project - she was nothing short of a grungy nuisance. Narcissa selected plain patterns to be made up in black, brown, and dark blue, and left off all the distinguishing little accessories she would have delighted over if she had a worthy candidate for her stylish expertise. The entire visit lasted under an hour, an unheard of record for Narcissa. She simply flipped through the catalogues, chose the dullest designs she saw, and picked out some nightdresses, white knickers, and shifts for Jane. Each garment was sturdy, functional, and austere.

It wasn't that Narcissa resented spending the galleons on her, not in the least. The sum of it was too measly to be sneezed at, really. And it wasn't even that Jane was a mudblood. If Narcissa had detected the slightest hint of natural grace or beauty in the child, she wouldn't have been able to resist finding colors to bring out the blush of a smooth, creamy cheek, or to accentuate latent hues in the irises, or to enhance a trim waist and blossoming bosom. Nothing about Jane was creamy and the limping, lackluster cripple had no appealing finesse of movement. She was deficient in curves. Even with a tight bodice her small chest was…well, they were like insect bites really, and this, combined with her narrow hips, meant that she barely even possessed a discernible waistline. To Narcissa, beauty was an art, she was an artist, and some people, and most especially herself, were an ideal canvass. Jane didn't even register as a blank piece of parchment that was suitable for sketching.

Lucius and then Nott rejoined them just as they were finishing.

Narcissa was pleased to see that her husband had combed his hair and put on a set of the jewelry she'd packed for him. She didn't think the amethysts went with his robes as well the sapphires would have, but she smiled at him and said, "Hello, handsome."

He smiled back and gave her a demure kiss on the cheek. He'd shaved as well. Lovely.

Teddy snickered at this exchange and Draco scowled at him.

Draco and Teddy wanted go to Quality Quidditch Supplies to look at the latest model of a superb Firebolt that had just been released for the public. None of the others had a problem with this so the young men went to drool over the new broomstick.

The rest of them took Jane to a store that sold boots. She needed some new shoes more than anything. Declining the owners many offerings of assistance, Narcissa took Jane behind a partition made by a rack of shoes and had Nott and Lucius fetch various styles and sizes. It was irritating trying to find shoes for the wretched cripple. She had to manually maneuver her detestable limb, which Narcissa could barely look at, and this made it hard for Jane to get each article on and then off again. The limited tractability of her fake leg also made it impossible for her to wear anything with a heel longer than two inches, and since very high heels were in never-ending vogue, Nott and Lucius were hard put to find anything that would work for her. Eventually, Jane and Narcissa found about five pairs of sturdy leather boots that Jane said she walk in comfortably.

They took their purchases to the counter and the while the clerk was ringing up the merchandise, praising their selections and enumerating all the charms that were systematically cast over every fine boot that comprised the inventory, another person on the Dark Lord's list came into the store.

It was a man called Danvers. Mr. Danvers began to greet Nott and the Malfoys with an oily, ingratiating smile and voice. When he saw Jane however, his face dropped and his eyes widened in unconcealed surprise.

Nott stepped forward, in an attempt to smooth over the awkward moment and, fingers crossed, head off any uncomfortable questions. "How's the lovely Mrs. Danvers?" he asked.

Recovering quickly, Mr. Danvers replied, "She's well, thank you. How's your son, Teddy, doing?"

Lucius and Narcissa joined the conversation and all the tedious niceties were observed with the ease of a well-rehearsed dance. In a way it was exactly that, a dance, a play, a complex art. Every social situation had a separate set of rules, each meal, every gathering, some even varied by the day of the week. If your grandfather was present at a Tuesday supper, and you were his second grandson, you greeted him by placing your left hand on his right shoulder and during the meal you had to make sure you were seated to his right, but never adjacent. The wealthy Pure-bloods, the foundations of magical society, knew that outsiders sometimes snickered at the fastidiousness of their protocols, but that was simply because they were jealous. They didn't know the members-only, secret handshakes, and their ignorance of these esoteric customs occluded them so delightfully and efficiently.

After the basic formalities had been got through, Narcissa walked toward the back of the shop to locate Jane. Suddenly a loud crashing noise resounded through the store and Narcissa, rushing toward the source of what sounded like an avalanche, found the mudblood standing next to a pile of shoes that had moments before been a glorious display.

"I's ent mean to," Jane said, softly, clearly frightened at the look of rage on Cissa's face.

Everybody else in the store, customers and employees alike, were soon gathered around the ignominious sight of the ruined exhibit and the grimy little reprobate who had created it.

"I's sorry," she said. And then, in true form, she began to cry.

Infuriated with Jane for attracting so much embarrassing attention to herself, and all of them, Lucius went to her side and grabbed the child roughly by her upper arm. The tips of his pale fingers turned red as he was digging them into her so hard and he was pleased when he heard her gasping a little. All the gathered witches and wizards watched as he escorted her firmly and quickly from the store, followed by his wife and Nott.

As soon as they reached the muggy heat of the late afternoon air, Jane began floundering, trying to extract herself from his heated clutch.

"You's hurtin me, Mr. Malfoy! Le' go!" she squealed loudly.

Lucius released her and she made a new spectacle of herself when she tripped over her boots and fell onto her bottom. She was crying loudly and people that were passing by turned to stare at her. She was such a sight! Very few people in England with dark skin had the creditable preservation of being half-bloods. Her dubious heredity was as audacious as the red BLOOD TRAITOR caveat flashing loudly over the burnt bookstores. But even stranger than the over zealous pigment of her skin was the fact that she was accompanied by a group of people, who were not only wealthy and powerful, but also known to be associated with the Dark Lord. They may as well been walking around with a tethered hippogriff. That's how odd her presence here truly seemed.

The owner of the store came out carrying the bags of boots that Narcissa had forgotten inside. Seeing the svelte, intimidating Malfoys and Nott gazing down in disdain at the bawling child on the ground, he simply set the bags by Lucius's feet and went back inside.

Finally, Lucius got her on her feet again and leaned over to talk quietly and roughly into her ear.

"You are making the most shameful scene, Poisson. Stop crying this instant, and get yourself together," he admonished her. "We won't tolerate this behavior for one more second, do you understand me?"

She closed her mouth and tried to reign in her misery a bit. She started to take a swipe at her gooey nose with the sleeve of her blue dress, but Narcissa upbraided her in time, and Jane pulled out a handkerchief and used it instead.

"I's said sorry," she told them in a shaking voice.

Leaning down, Narcissa whispered, "Did you at least see Clyde Danvers?"

Jane nodded.

"Are you certain?" Lucius asked.

She nodded and said, "Yeah, I's seen 'im. 'E were pale and tall and 'ad straight black 'air, yeah'?"

They all sighed in relief. At least, whatever else may have happened, that was one more person to cross off the Dark Lord's list.

 _To be continued…_


	11. Diagon Alley Part 2

**Posted:** 11/28/2015

 **Beta:** theartfulscribbler

 **Diagon Alley Part 2**

After supper that evening Narcissa made sure that Jane took her promised bath. As she had to sleep in the same room with the mudblood, she was sorely tempted to let herself in the lavatory and give Jane a thorough scrubbing herself. She felt a strong desire to wash behind Jane's ears and shampoo, rinse, and repeat, shampoo, rinse, and repeat, etcetera, etcetera. Luckily, this dire urge to clean a creature as nasty as Jane collided with her propriety. Ironically, it was her sense of decorum that had prompted Narcissa to agree to share a room with Jane in the first place.

If her Lucius and her Draco were the only men involved, then none of it would have been an issue. However, Cissa didn't really know Theodore and Jr. Not really. Although she had been loosely acquainted with every respectable Pure-blood family since her birth, forty-three years had disabused Cissa of certain notions of nobility that she had been raised to believe were the core of decent society. She didn't want to examine her feelings of unease at the idea of Nott or his son sleeping in the same room with anybody as helpless and ignorant as Jane. If Jane weren't so young, she wouldn't have cared one way or the other. It wasn't that she thought they might _rape_ her. Although she didn't know what sort of proclivities Nott might indulge, she did know that he had enough sense not to rattle the child and chance incurring the Dark Lord's displeasure. But she was worried that one or both of them might…try to seduce her. Probably not, it was a ridiculous idea to be sure; but Cissa thought that perhaps Jane might be susceptible to the sort of male attention of which she had, being an orphan, been deprived.

This disturbing idea could be dated back about a week ago when she had watched Draco sit on the floor to play that silly board game with Jane, on the evening of the wasp. Draco had hoped that Jane wouldn't hold him at his word, but she had, she was clearly intent on it. So Draco had found a game, a very simple one, and sat down with the cripple on a thick soft rug in the sitting room. He had painstakingly explained the rules to her and then proceeded to play two rounds with her. It wasn't the sort of game where winning revolved around actual knowledge or strategy, but rather mere chance. Poor Draco had been bored out of his skull the entire time and he'd only agreed to play the second game because Jane had started whining about it. But Jane had certainly enjoyed herself. When she'd won the second game she had expressed her pleasure with her entire body, smiling, applauding herself, and she even wriggled her bottom a bit in her excitement. The Malfoys had all laughed at her enthusiasm. She'd reminded Narcissa strongly of a puppy. And then the next day she'd asked Draco to play with her again. He'd refused of course. But then Narcissa and Lucius both noticed that Jane had _sort of_ seemed to follow Draco around for a while that day. He had noticed it as well, and finally, growing sick of his stinky shadow, turned to her and said, "Look, Poisson, I'm not going to scratch you behind the ears or rub your belly. Go away!"

"Fine," she had yelled, "I's goin' to brush my's teef!"

"Good," he'd answered, with calm satisfaction, "and why don't you wash your smelly armpits while you're at it?"

She didn't return from brushing her teeth, and they'd had to hunt her down, _again_.

So Narcissa didn't want Jane to spend the night in a room with only Nott or his son for a guardian. And the fact that Jane had seemed opposed to it had caused her to wonder if the child herself had seen Nott, in the course of spying for Dumbledore, engage in behaviors that were…abnormal. Cissa wouldn't allow herself to think of this as protecting Jane. That would seem too much like caring, but essentially that's what she was doing.

It saddened Narcissa to know that the only people in the world whose nature she could always rely on were her own, her husband's, and her son's. And sometimes she quite shamefully entertained a few doubts about theirs. It wasn't because of anything that either of them said or did, she knew that. It was only because of herself. Well, because of Andromeda actually. It had broken her heart when, at the age of sixteen, she'd realized that she had lost her favorite sister forever.

In hindsight there had been signs. But while it was all happening, it had seemed unbelievable. Droma had sent an owl to their mother and father, but she had also sent Cissa a separate letter. It had simply read:

'I love him, Cissy. I'll miss you, but not as much as I'd miss him.

Please remember me sometimes. I'll never stop remembering you.

Yours ever,

Droma'.

Cissa had thrown that letter into the fire and never told a living soul about it. Not even Lucius. She wasn't trying to burn the letter itself, but she desperately wanted to incinerate the implications of what her sister must have done. Perhaps she was hoping she could cremate her love for her sister.

The next day her mother had sent her an owl explaining that her sister had gone and thrown her life away and it was too terrible to be spoken of; Druella had related the atrocity, as succinctly as possible, in a shaky, nearly illegible scrawl, and had told Cissa not to mention Droma's name to herself or her father, or ever again. When she'd returned home for her Easter holiday a few weeks later, her parents didn't say anything about it. They'd removed every portrait of Andromeda, even the ones where all three sisters had posed together, they had burnt her name off all the family trees, and they'd thrown out all of Droma's belongings from her old room. And from then until now, it was as though she had never been born.

Narcissa still struggled not to remember Droma, she felt so weak when she did, but sometimes she couldn't help it. After all, she had always considered Droma to be the kind one. The unselfish one. How could she have misjudged her sister so completely? To this day she was haunted by it all, and it still affected her. It made it harder for Narcissa to trust people.

After her bath, Jane put on a dressing gown and went to the main room to sit with the grown-ups and listen to them talk. She had seated herself on the sofa, between Teddy and Draco, but even though she was freshly bathed and wearing clean clothes Draco had gotten up and found another seat. Teddy didn't care if she sat beside him, and Jane curled her left leg under herself, reached down and pulled up the artificial one, and then she stretched out in the place Draco had just vacated.

It pleased and amused Cissa to see how mature her son looked as he sat there sipping from his snifter and puffing on his cigarettes. He and Teddy were enumerating the merits of the new Firebolt, comparing it to the last model and all the other superbly inferior brands currently on the market.

"It doesn't hold a candle to the Nimbus 2002. I read in Which Broomstick that the Tornadoes have placed an order for them, so maybe they'll be able to scrape a win at the next Cup," Teddy was saying.

"Perhaps," Draco answered. It was hard for Draco to be animated over Quidditch teams. As a sport he loved it, but every time he had begun to support a certain team, they went and changed up the players so that there were more mudbloods on the pitch than Pure-bloods. So he'd have to find a new one to root for. After a while, it got a bit disheartening. Being the elite made for some hard sacrifices.

Lucius and Nott were discussing fopshkins, which were the newest hat craze that all the stylish wizards were wearing.

"I thought the one Danvers was wearing this afternoon made him look like a chrysanthemum," Lucius said.

Nott, Narcissa, and even Draco, who had heard his father, laughed at this remark.

"I know," Nott agreed after he'd done laughing. "I'll never understand why some men think it's okay to wear that shade of pink."

"Forget the color," Lucius said. "Did you see that ridiculous feather arrangement adorning it? And he had it tilted at the wrong angle. I don't see how his wife lets him leave home that way."

"They're almost exactly like the nerks that were so popular a couple decades ago," Narcissa contributed. "I never liked the nerks and I don't care for the fopshkins either. I wish reeverderns would come back, though."

She and Lucius shared an intimate smile at her mentioning reeverderns. They were the hats that had been in style the year they were engaged. Although the hats had gone out of fashion by their wedding day, for years afterward she would often have Lucius wear this beautiful blue one when they were alone. To this day, if Narcissa saw a picture of a reeverdern, it would make her pulse race and her eyes dilate.

Narcissa stifled a deep sigh of discontent and felt a pang in her hollowed chest. Lucius hadn't made love to her for so long.

"Well Danvers is an idiot. Always has been," Nott said. "He has a head that's thicker than a cauldron bottom. I can't believe he's opposing the elimination of the Muggle Protection Act."

Lucius scoffed. "I can't believe he was supporting it to begin with. I asked him six years ago, why he was helping _Arthur Weasley_ ," Lucius pronounced this name like an expletive, "push it through, and you know what he said?"

Lucius had told Nott what Danvers had said to him, more than once, but, following the dictates of decency, he politely pretended he hadn't heard it before.

"He said, 'Muggles are too helpless to pose a threat to our kind, Lucius. Why can't we let them be?'"

Despite the redundancy, Nott and Narcissa both scoffed with aversion.

"If any of his children announced they wanted to mate with a mudblood, you know he'd be singing a different tune," Narcissa observed.

"It's too bad all the Weasleys have gone into hiding. If anyone could lead Jane to Potter, I think it would be one of them," Nott said.

They all looked at Jane. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply. She was asleep. It wasn't even ten o'clock yet so she must have been worn out from the day of traveling and shopping.

The next day was equally productive.

The Notts and Malfoys ushered Jane around the shops, pretending to browse and often buying whatever they fancied.

In the morning Lucius and Draco had stopped by Gringotts and made a trip to their vault. They replenished their moneybags, and Lucius had some family jewels to exchange. The Malfoys had more precious gems than they could wear in a lifetime, so most of it was stored in their cavernous vault. But they often deposited different sets of jewelry for safe-keeping and would bring out different ones that they were fond of, but hadn't worn in a few years. Narcissa had given him a list of certain items in their vast collection that she wanted to take home and wear again.

Jane was a perpetual pain. When they took their eyes off of her, she would slip away from them, never very far, but then they would have to walk around whatever store they were in, searching for her. One time, Narcissa had grown quite frantic after a casual search had established that Jane wasn't hiding around any of the aisles of merchandise.

"Lucius," she had whispered, her eyes widened in her panic, "I can't find Poisson. It isn't here!"

Then all five of them had begun walking around the rows and displays of books. After a few minutes, they'd all become alarmed. Oh Merlin! They'd lost her. So they'd all filed out the door together, hoping fervently that she hadn't managed to hobble very far. But they spotted her right away. She was just sitting on a bench right out front, humming and swinging her good leg, a picture of innocence and boredom.

They all chastised her vehemently but she simply crossed her arms and studied some rubbish lying on the ground in front of her. The mischievous little imp clearly didn't give a damn.

By lunch time they'd crossed paths with two more people from the list. Well they hadn't actually seen Aldous Abbott, but rather his wife. But Jane had assured them that this was good enough.

"Are you sure, Poisson?" Narcissa had probed, needing to be certain before they counted Mr. Abbott as 'seen'.

"'E live wif her?" Jane had asked.

The Malfoys and Notts had exchanged inquisitive glances. They were fairly positive that the Abbotts were still a couple.

"Yes. I'm pretty sure they live together," Narcissa had said. "They're still married."

Jane shrugged and said, "I's just be followin' 'er to 'im, then."

Since this coincided with what they'd heard her tell their master, and she seemed convinced that it would work, they decided to focus on the last person on the list: a Mr. Rugger Boothby.

Narcissa was a bit disappointed that they were almost finished. Diagon Alley wasn't as nice a place as it used to be, but once they were back at home it might be months before they were allowed to leave again. After they spotted Boothby, they were to send a message to Thickness, and then he and Nott would take Jane by car to the Ministry of Magic for a day or two. Jane and Nott would return to the Leaky Cauldron each evening for supper and to sleep, and then once that business was finished, the Malfoys would take her back to the manor. Then her work for the Dark Lord would begin.

Trying to look on the bright side, Narcissa was thankful that they'd finally been able to buy Draco everything he wanted for his birthday. On the day or two when Jane was going to be at the Ministry, Draco and his parents were going back to Twilfitt and Tattings to update their wardrobes.

After they'd eaten some soup and sandwiches at The Dueler's Diner they were on their way to a shop called Paisley's Art Emporium. Lucius and Narcissa had decided to buy Jane any art supplies for which she expressed an interest. The weather had been exceptionally pleasant over the summer, but it couldn't last forever. Once autumn settled in, the chilly winds and cold rains wouldn't permit any more of the outdoor respites that it seemed Jane sorely needed to keep her in a good humor. Unless the Dark Lord miraculously had a change of heart about where Jane should live, it was going to be a long winter. They had already bought her some picture books and whatever else they noticed capturing her attention for more than a few minutes. She was entranced by anything shiny or colorful, so they'd already spent a good deal of money on her. Unloading their cash on the mudblood felt exactly the same as it did when they made charitable contributions to humanitarian causes, a hapless necessity.

They were almost to the art store, passing the entryway to Knockturn Alley, when they were suddenly confronted by Patrick Goyle and Albert Crabbe. These hulking baboons had their sons with them. The Malfoys and Nott and Teddy stopped for a moment and greeted their co-workers.

"Thought you three weren't 'llowed out of the house," Crabbe said, giving spiteful looks to Narcissa and Lucius.

Narcissa detested the lecherous looks she was receiving from Goyle and his son.

"We're here on business for the Dark Lord," Nott told him.

Lucius was furious, and badly wished he had a wand. Crabbe would never dare speak to him this way if he was armed. These mouth-breathing morons had been his closest friends in his days at Hogwarts, much the way Draco had been the undisputed chief of Vincent and Gregory. But after they'd graduated, and especially during the last war, Lucius had realized that while it was fun to tote around these mindless cronies as a schoolboy, it wasn't circumspect for those friendships to carry over into adulthood. Crabbe and Goyle may be Pure-bloods, but they weren't principled, or bright.

Draco was just as uncomfortable seeing Vincent and Gregory as his dad and mum were at seeing their fathers. Their last year at Hogwarts together had been terrible. He couldn't believe how disrespectful his old lackeys had become toward him. And they'd demonstrated an amorous fondness for torture that Draco had found disquieting.

Vincent and Gregory were examining Jane with blatant interest. Jane didn't ignore them the way she had when Teddy had looked her over, but rather she went and tried to hide behind Narcissa.

"Stop that," Narcissa told her.

Narcissa stepped to the side and moved herself back until she and Jane were level, and then she immediately regretted it.

Draco saw Vince whisper something into Greg's ear and cracking identical evil grins they pulled out their wands and started casting spells at Jane.

Without hesitating, Narcissa, Nott, and Teddy pulled out their own wands and pointed them at the large young men.

"Put those wands away this second," Nott hissed at them.

"Not in public, you imbeciles," Lucius said with barely suppressed rage.

Crabbe slapped his son roughly across the back of his head. "Knock it off you two. Not out here!" he bellowed.

A couple of witches and a wizard passing by were watching the group with confused faces.

Upset at being told off in front of everybody, Vince and Greg stowed their wands back in their robes.

They were so mentally deficient! It absolutely killed Draco that these idiots had completed the last year of their education before him. When he remembered all the times he'd helped them write and edit their essays, let them steal peeks at his exam papers, all the late nights he'd spent tutoring those despicable ingrates, all so they could scrape by with mere passes, it made his blood churn. Draco couldn't believe these feckless buffoons had the privilege of having wands when he didn't. Like Teddy, both of them were training to become Death Eaters, and as far as Draco was concerned it would be a sorry day indeed, when these two swelled the ranks.

"What's all the shiny stuff in your mouth?" Vince asked Jane.

The Notts and the Malfoys, who were curious about the pieces of metal adhered to her teeth, but reluctant to show their curiosity about it, looked at Jane, anticipating her answer. But instead of replying she coyly stepped behind Narcissa again. Narcissa gave an audible sigh and said, "We need to be on our way."

Mumbling insincere goodbyes to one another, the Crabbes and Goyles moved off and the rest proceeded to the art store.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

They didn't spot Boothby that day, or the next. It wasn't until the fourth day, when they were supping at Lasandra's Tea Room, that they saw him and his wife eating together. As soon as they got back to their suite, Nott sent Thickness an owl telling him to send a Ministry car round the next day.

Once they had the mudblood off of their hands the Malfoys really began to relax and they did some serious shopping. They decided it would probably be wise to buy each other some Christmas presents, so they split up for a good portion of the two days that Jane was with the Minister for Magic. Draco kept returning to Quality Quidditch Supplies to admire the Firebolt, and Lucius, borrowing Cissa's wand, for it would've been suicidal not to, made a couple of trips into Knockturn Alley to purchase some rare, expensive, and illicit potion ingredients that the Dark Lord had ordered him to buy. The Dark Lord had informed Lucius that he and his family would soon begin assisting him with an aggressive, daily regiment of magical experiments on Jane.

Draco didn't spend much gold on himself, though Father had given him loads of it. He did find a gorgeous silver flask with a matching cigarette case, and bought it for himself. He bought Mother a baroque chiffon scarf and a pair of ruby earrings for Christmas. And he bought Father a sleek, glossy pipe that came with a supple leather pouch that had an assortment of pockets. Inside, Father could store the pipe, tobacco, and a gleaming pick, reamer, and tamper. He knew that Father already had one of these, but this new one had some built-in spells that helped keep the tobacco fresh and he hoped Father might appreciate it.

After he'd purchased Father the pipe kit Draco went to Flourish and Blotts. Lately Draco had started to feel that books were an escape rivaled only by flying. Well, that is, unless he wanted to start drinking heavily the way Father did. But he didn't want to do that. He reckoned one inebriate in the family was about all poor Mother could handle.

Draco found a novel that he thought Father would like. The synopsis seemed promising. It was an adventure mystery story, about a wizard who invents a spell that allows the caster to travel to the future, but when another wizard finds out about the spell, he kidnaps the inventor's wife and daughter and tries to coerce him into giving him the incantation. Will he manage to save them, and keep this dastardly villain from wrecking everyone's future?

After he purchased Father the book and a few for himself as well, he was on his way out the door when a display caught his eye. He saw that a new Pure-blood Passion novel had been published.

Smirking to himself, Draco picked it up and examined the cover. Mother loved this sappy mush, though she only read them in secret. When he was fourteen he had found her stash and read quite a few of them. Once he'd gotten used to the flowery, euphemistic language of them, he had found the sex scenes quite titillating; he imagined he had learned a thing or two from them, the least of which was that women have a completely different take on sex than men. Draco chuckled to himself when he remembered Father's reaction when he had been caught reading one.

He was hiding in one of the remoter corners of the manor, down on the second floor of the west wing. Father had walked up softly behind him and, unbeknownst to Draco, leaned over his shoulder to figure out what his son was reading, closeted so far from his parents. Draco was startled out of his wits when he was suddenly jerked from a sultry scene by the sound of Father laughing.

He had immediately, _foolishly_ , tried to hide the book under his leg, and could feel his face flaming with humiliation; but Father, still laughing fit to burst, had just seated himself next to Draco and then, calming down a bit, asked, "Learning anything useful?"

Seeing the amusement in Father's eyes, Draco relaxed a bit and said, "Yeah. Women are bloody mad."

This set Father off on another peal of eye-watering mirth, and this time Draco joined him.

He reached over and casually took the book from Draco and looked it over. "Have you gotten to the part where Lionel and Deitlemeyer duel each other?"

Draco was overcome with laughter again and asked, " _You've_ read it?"

Father, chuckling lightly, responded, "Sometimes I do, though I often just skim through to the sex scenes." (Lucius neglected to mention that he was fond of reading them aloud to Narcissa as a form of pre-foreplay. It drove her wild.)

"Is this how women really see sex?" Draco asked. It was the first time Father had introduced the subject and he did not want to squander it.

"Well," Father, hesitated a bit, wanting to give him an answer that was precise. "Yes and no, son. I believe…that for women, sex _is_ quite different than it is for men, but this," and he held the book up, "is a blatant exaggeration of what a sexual experience is really like for both a man and a woman. Men can be content with just…well," Father fastened his grey eyes on Draco's, a virtual replica of his own, " _fucking_." It was the crudest thing he had ever heard Father say. "But women are rarely up for just that. They want to be…well," and he held up the book again, "made love to."

"Is it, I mean," Draco swallowed, "is it… _hard_ …to make love to a woman?"

"Well, it's something you have to learn; it's a skill you see, like potion-brewing, or spell-casting, or even riding a broom. It's almost an art," Father told him, his voice taking on a serious tone. "It's a duty sometimes, but a pleasure as well."

"A _duty_ ," Draco repeated, his surprise undisguised.

"Well, because…sometimes, if you're tired you won't feel up to it, but if your wife needs it…then, yes," Lucius said, concise, nodding, and he held Draco's eyes again. "A good relationship is based on give and take, Draco. Expectations met and, when you're able to, exceeded. But don't think it isn't fun. It is, Draco. When you're old enough and ready, sex is wonderful."

That's how Father had always been. A lesson imparted at every opportunity and Draco absorbed every word, imbibed them, until Father's every belief was his own.

Father had gotten up at that point, the lesson was over, and, holding out the book to him, said, "Don't let your mother catch you reading that."

"Yes, sir." Draco took it back from him.

He wondered if Mother knew that a new one had been published. He should probably mention it to Father. Draco could not get it for her; that would be too embarrassing for both of them, but he thought Father should. It would make a good Christmas present for her.

Draco heard a familiar giggle behind him, and, emitting a low sigh of resignation, he put the smutty book back on the display and turned around.

"Hey, Pansy," he said.

"Hello, Draco," she said, and giggled again, exposing her crooked teeth. "Do you like the Pure-blood Passion books?"

Draco looked his ex-girlfriend up and down, making her bristle with discomfort at his scrutiny.

Instead of speaking to her, he just shook his head, pleased to see that he still had the power to affect her.

"Yes, I think they're mindless rubbish personally," she said, trying to adopt a pedantic tone that Draco found nauseating.

He ranked running into Pansy right up there with meeting up with Crabbe and Goyle, though for completely different reasons. Pansy, he noticed, had cut her short brown hair even shorter. He took in her small, light brown eyes, her wide bulbous nose and spotty chin and forehead, and wondered why he had ever dated her in the first place. It was probably her breasts he decided as he looked her over; she had pretty large ones.

Knowing precisely how she would react, Draco said, "Mother loves the Passion series."

"Yeah, I sort of like them too. I mean, please don't mention it to anyone, because I wouldn't want people getting the wrong idea, you know, but sometimes I just love to curl up beside a big crackling fire, with a hot cup of tea, and I just read them all the way through, yeah," she backtracked swiftly, not even bothering to breathe in her attempt to negate her previous contempt for something that the man of her dream's mum loved.

And then, for entertainment purposes only, Draco countered, "I think they're pretty stupid myself."

"Yeah, me too," she conversed. "I've only read a couple of them."

"Right," he said tonelessly.

He just stood there for a moment, looking blankly at her, clearly bored. He could see the cogs winding and coiling behind her eyes, while she struggled to think of a topic of conversation that would keep him engaged, interested in her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, apparently at a loss for something clever to say.

"Shopping," he replied tersely, and held up his shopping bag.

"Me too," she said, and then she lifted her hands. She looked down at them, and appeared shocked to find them so disobligingly empty. "Well, I just got here, so I haven't bought anything yet." And she gave a pathetic, nervous, little titter.

She was such an idiot. She had followed him around like a puppy their entire seventh year, and though he had refused to date her openly again, a few times he had taken her to the dark empty dungeons in the bowels of the castle and snogged her while she let him grope her chest. She had refused to let him go further south than that - not that his attempts were anything more than half-hearted. He just wanted some experience, or at least the satisfaction of knowing that he had gone that far.

"I'll let you get on with it then," he said, mimicking Father's most disinterested drawl. "I'm meeting up with Father and Mother."

"Oh, are you're parents here?" she asked excitedly. She had never met his parents, as she didn't exactly belong to the same set as the Malfoys, but Draco knew she was dying to meet them. When he had been in a relationship with her, she had often told him how much she hoped he would introduce her to them on Platform 9 ¾, but he'd always managed to avoid doing so. By the grace of Merlin.

He just nodded and took a step closer to the exit. He held up his hand and said, "See you around, Parkinson." He caught a glimpse of her hurt expression at his impersonal use of her surname before he walked out of the store.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

Jane stopped her gimpy gait and gaped expressionlessly at a large framed picture that had been adhered to a tall brick wall. The Malfoys were leading her down Charring Cross Road, for Lucius was positive that if they went one street over they would find a better place to hail a taxi for the train station. Passing pedestrians were staring in frank amazement at his and Draco's robes, but they didn't pay them any heed.

"Come on, Poisson," Narcissa rebuked her. "We need to hurry and catch the 10:55."

"Why?" Jane asked, not removing her eyes from the poster.

"So we can get home," Lucius explained. She was thicker than Henderson's Magically Hardy Adhesive Glue.

"I's wanna see it," Jane said. "Can we's go?"

All three of them looked at one another, slightly bewildered.

"See what? Go where?" Lucius asked.

Jane, unhelpfully, pointed at the big advertisement.

The Malfoys followed her finger and looked at the picture she was studying. It looked like a group of scantily clad adolescents lined up facing the camera. Like every Muggle photograph the occupants were posing in stationary stupidity. In large writing above the Muggles it said: HOW DO I LOATHE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS, and then below these words, in even bigger writing: 10 things I hate about you.

"It's a picture Poisson, we can look at it, but we can't go inside of it," Lucius said, baffled at her strange request.

Lucius thought for a moment that Jane rolled her eyes.

"It's a flicker, Mr. Malfoy. A cimena," she told him. "I's wanna go."

The Malfoys had no idea what she was talking about. Draco shifted his new broom from his right shoulder to his left, annoyed at this cryptic delay. They had used magic to transport all of their luggage and the new things they'd bought back to the manor. But Draco wasn't about to let go of the Firebolt, not for a second.

"What the hell is a flicker, Poisson? If it's some Muggle nonsense, you can forget about it," Draco told her.

"It's bein' a moving picture, like a play," she said quietly. "Is so funny, some of 'em, and I's love 'em. Please? Mr. Dumbledore and Sirius be taking me's a right load of times!"

The Malfoy were rapidly feeling enraged at her request. They'd heard of these moving pictures before, but they'd be damned if they would ever willingly sit through one. It was common knowledge that they were like plays except there weren't any actors actually present, just some soft, white wall. To sit in the dark, and spend a few hours breathing in the same air as a large auditorium of stinking Muggles sounded nothing short of torture. And these moving pictures sounded uncomfortably close to magic for the Malfoys liking.

Lucius leaned down and spat angrily at the stupid girl, "We don't care what those two mudblood-loving traitors did to keep you happy! We'll never take you anywhere so closely connected to the Muggle world and that's an end to it! And don't mention those vile idiots again, if you know what's good for you!"

He put his hand on her back and pushed her forward, being careful not to do it too roughly, lest she fall over. "Get a move on. Now!"

And they proceeded home, without further incident.


	12. Unprepared

**Posted:** 12/04/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Unprepared**

 **3** **rd** **August, 1998**

Draco was high. He was high above the earth, his home, and momentarily his troubles.

His new Firebolt was pretty damn amazing! Slicing through the cool air of elevated altitudes was a rush unlike any other. He'd spent his entire fourth and fifth year of school begging Father for one of these - it had galled him that Potter owned one when he didn't - and Draco knew he'd finally acquired it by guilt. Not that he was necessarily trying to make his parents feel guilty.

Draco was so far off the ground today he wouldn't be surprised to see one of those insane Muggle thingies, the huge ones made of _metal_ , flying past him. When he was younger Draco hadn't been allowed to go much higher than the trees, but since the Dark Lord didn't care about the International Statute of Secrecy, Draco could soar with the eagles with complete impunity.

He liked coming up here and gazing at the horizons. He knew with the Firebolt between his knees it would only take him a few hours to reach them. This was a pointless unrealistic fantasy, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from indulging in it from time to time. Draco just wanted to leave his life behind. He wanted to fly away.

Draco couldn't believe how drastically everything had changed in the past two years. There had been one bad omen, on the evening of his fifteenth birthday. It was right after the Dark Lord had returned to power, and Father's Dark Mark had begun to burn during Draco's birthday supper. They planned to cut the cake soon, but Father told him that his master was calling him and he had to leave.

"Can I come, Dad?" he had eagerly asked. Now Draco cringed when he remembered how naïve he'd been at that point.

Father had fixed him with a look that was partially proud, but there was something else in it too - something he had not been able to recognize at the time. It was sort of like the way Father had looked at Draco when was hospitalized for Dragon Pox at the age of nine. Now Draco understood that wary look for what it was, and it was not at all surprising that he had been unable to discern it when he was newly fifteen. It was fear. And that was not an emotion he was accustomed to seeing in Father's eyes. Not back then anyway.

"It's my birthday! Can't I meet the Dark Lord? It would be a _great_ present!" he had insisted. He usually expected to get his way, because he so often did.

But Father had used a tone, the special one that meant he would brook little argument and Draco shouldn't push his luck.

So Father had left them, and he still had yet to return by eleven. Draco had gone to bed that evening feeling a bit disappointed that Father had to leave on his birthday, but still very proud of him for being a friend of the Dark Lord's.

But Draco had woken up in the middle of the night, something he rarely did. He was not sure what had called him out of his deep easy slumber. Draco got out of bed and went, for some inexplicable reason, to Father and Mother's room. Their bed was empty, but the door to the lavatory was half-open and there was a stretched and beveled patch of candlelight on the floor, lighting his way to the unknown scene inside. He could hear Mother and Father talking; their voices were lowered, so he wasn't sure why he'd awakened or why there was a heavy lump of anxiety in his stomach, as he softly crossed the room on his quiet naked feet.

Making sure he stood outside the pool of light undulating on the floor, he was paralyzed by the grisly scene inside. Blood, Father's blood, was all he could see; the drops and rivulets of the crimson liquid glared vividly against the light grey coloring of the large marble lavatory. Father sat on the broad edge of the bath, bare-chested and battered. Mother stood in front of him wearing a buttery night dress that was floor-length and lacy. Draco saw that she had pinned her thick golden hair in a slapdash bun, and it was one of the few times that he'd seen her looking anything but impeccably coifed. Mother held a large blue phial in one hand, and with the other she gently dabbed at her husband's many cuts and bruises with a bloodied cloth. The pungent smell of the antiseptic potion that filled Draco's nostrils was a familiar one. He watched them, horrified and utterly transfixed.

"I had to tell him, Cissa," Father said. His hands were trembling with the pain and the after effects of the trauma.

"Why didn't you _lie_ to him?" Mother had inquired softly, a touch of disgust in her voice.

"I _can't_ lie to him. No one can. He kept asking and asking, and I tried to evade him," Father confessed, bringing up his trembling hands to rub over his eyes. "But there was nothing I could do," he told her. "I didn't think he'd be that upset about an old book. I mean, it was obviously an object with immense power, but… I don't know, Cissa." Father's voice was shaking badly at that point. "He was angrier than I have ever seen him. I thought my life was over. I thought I would never see you and the boy again."

Father, rather roughly it seemed to Draco, pushed Mother's graceful blood-splattered hands away from his body and reached out with his long white arms to hook her haphazardly around her slim waist. He watched Father pull Mother down to his lap, bury his head in the corner of her neck, and then his shoulders began to heave. Draco heard an odd noise reverberating out from the lavatory.

The entire world seemed to be falling away from beneath Draco as he realized that Father, his fearless, powerful father, was actually _crying_. As quietly as he could, Draco slipped back to his bedroom, because the only thing worse than knowing _Father could cry_ , would be for Father to know that _Draco_ _knew_ hecouldcry.

After that day, Draco stopped thinking of the Dark Lord as Father's friend, and he began to understand why he was always referred to as Master. Little did he then suspect that a mere one year later the Dark Lord would become his own Master too.

Draco took a nose dive at a dizzying spin, slicing through the air like Sectumsempra through satin, and pulled up just before he reached the ground. Once he was back on earth, back home and with his problems all before him, he headed up a shaded path that led to the garden. He was parched, and knew Mother would have some refreshments waiting at the Nook.

"'Elp!"

Draco hesitated for a moment, and then stepped off the path and made his way through the spiny undergrowth, to the coniferous tree in which he knew he'd find her sitting. She was spectacularly stupid, this little freak.

"'Elp!" she called again right before he came into sight.

She saw him then and directed her cries for assistance at him. "Would you's 'elp me down?"

She wasn't even that far off the ground, her head was just a bit higher than Draco's own, but obviously being a cripple made it impossible for her to jump down safely. For the life of him, Draco couldn't figure how any person as brain-dead as Jane could have survived for even five years, let alone twelve. Jane climbed up this tree about every other day and couldn't get manage to get down. He thought, _by_ _now_ , she would have either worked out which branches to use as a ladder, to lower herself safely back to the ground, or she would have realized that she should quit going up the tree in the first place.

"You're a complete moron. You know that don't you?" he asked her.

"Please 'elp me."

"Why do think mudbloods are so stupid? Got any half-brewed theories sloshing around that empty head of yours?"

"Please 'elp me's down," she repeated.

"I'll help you down…if you say, 'I'm a stupid mudblood.'"

"Please," she said softly in her husky voice. Draco didn't think her deep voice matched her size. It wasn't masculine really, it just didn't seem right that someone so immature should have such a grown-up sounding voice.

"Poisson, why do you _always_ climb this tree when you know you can't get down?"

She didn't say anything but her lower lip started to quiver. It seemed like she couldn't get through one day without crying at least five times. And sure enough, as Draco stood there watching, a small tear started sliding down her mucky face.

Merlin's beard she was so filthy! Draco looked her over and saw she had already ruined the brand new gown his parents had purchased for her in Diagon Alley. The hem was ripped and caked with dirt, and crusted remnants of her breakfast and lunch spattered the bodice. All this combined with her dusky skin and he thought she really put the 'mud' in mudblood. He hated getting her out of this tree, having to touch her, but knew he was duty-bound to do it, so she wouldn't wind up breaking her revoltingly precious neck.

"Please?" she asked again with a trembling voice.

"I told you. Say, 'I'm a stupid mudblood', and I'll get you down," he told her, vicious and inclement, his pale eyelids lowering to malicious slits.

She put her forehead against the trunk she was clinging to and started crying harder. "Please get me's down."

"Say it _first_ , and then I'll get you down."

She just kept crying. She was a stubborn little thing.

"I'll give you one more chance, Poisson. Say 'I'm a stupid mudblood', or you're going to find out whether these woods really are infested with werewolves at the full moon," he said. It was a lie, of course. No Malfoy would ever tolerate a werewolf in their woods, and he honestly wasn't sure whether the moon was full this night or not. But she didn't know that, and he was pleased to see her eyes widening in fear and panic. With the instincts of a born predator, remembering what Scabior had told the Dark Lord the day she was delivered, he added, "Sometimes Greyback runs around back here, too."

"Please!" she wailed. "Please get me's down!"

"Fine, I'm going back to the house now," Draco replied nonchalantly, and started to walk away.

"Wait!" she sobbed urgently. "Please don't be leaving me's 'ere! Please, come back!"

He walked a few more paces and then stopped and turned around.

"Come on, Poisson," he said softly. "Just admit that you're a stupid mudblood. We all know it, including you."

"Okay, I's say it! I's a stupid mudblood! Now please be 'elpin' me's down now!" she cried.

Having extracted his cruel-but-necessary toll - and not feeling as satisfied by it as he hoped he would - Draco crossed the small clearing to the tree. He stepped onto the lowest branch, getting himself level with her, and wrapped his arm around her. She smelled awful, sort of sweaty and sour. Sometimes these unpleasant scents mingled with other mysterious musky odors that Draco refused to try and identify.

Jane clung to him with all her might, one tiny arm around his neck, the other clutching tightly around his middle; until he had carefully lowered himself, and then her, to the ground. Luckily she was very light. Draco doubted she even came to seven stone. Once she could feel that her foot and her prosthesis were both planted firmly on the moist earth she swiftly released him, and with a mumbled, rather doleful, 'fanks', headed toward the garden, swiping her foul, sap-sticky hands over her dirt-colored cheeks.

He strode a little ways behind her and watched her walking. He despised her limp as much as everything else about her. The idea of her deformity sickened him. He didn't understand how anything as pathetic as her would _want_ to exist. Why didn't she just off herself and put him and his parents out of their misery?

When he was a little boy, Draco had often had a certain idea. He'd mulled it over many times, despite knowing that it would never happen. When he was young he had thought that if for whatever reason (a reason he could never come up with), some ordinary Muggle were to come into his home, look around at their beautiful manor, see his parents using magic, come face-to-face with the glorious portraits of their numerous ancestors, get a glimpse of the wall-to-wall tapestries that depicted their vast family-tree and lineage, and just really understand what he and his family were - the height of purity and power – then that Muggle would then go back to whatever dingy shack it came from and look around it and, once it was forced to recognize how dismal its own pointless, dreary, magic-less existence truly was, it would inevitably decide to end its own life. He had been persuaded of the truth of this idea with a passionate conviction that is common in children and rare in adults. Draco hadn't really remembered that idea in years. But now that Jane was living with them it had come back to him.

He and Jane rounded the last garden path and headed into the courtyard toward the Nook where his parents were sitting. When they saw them approaching Mother poured them each a glass of lemonade.

"You sit there," Draco told her, pointing to the chair positioned closer to the fountain.

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm not sitting downwind of you," he said simply.

Father glanced up from the book he was reading, saw that Jane was now positioned downwind of _him_ , and uttered a dour 'thanks' toward Draco.

"Poisson, what have you done to your new dress?" Mother asked.

Jane plopped herself gracelessly into her appointed seat and just shrugged, as though she didn't know or care what had happened to it.

"The Dark Lord is coming to see you in a little while, Poisson," Father told her.

She didn't say or do anything to indicate that she heard him. She just sipped her lemonade and helped herself to one of the pears from a bowl in the middle of the table.

"Did you slip away yesterday evening?" Mother asked her.

Father and Draco both looked at Jane to see if she would answer the question. She didn't _have_ to tell them anything, not really. The Malfoys were simply her caregivers, not her masters, and her duties to the Dark Lord were really between her and him. However, since she was in _their_ care they all knew that, in a lateral way, they were responsible for her ability to slip away.

Jane nodded, and they all experienced a release of tension in their shoulders, chests, and bellies.

It seemed cruel to the Malfoys that they might be held accountable for anything as arbitrary as Jane's "power" appeared to be. But there it was.

"How are you enjoying your Firebolt?" Father asked Draco.

Draco lifted his long arms over his head and stretched. Then he casually crossed them behind his head. "It corners on a sickle," he answered.

"Good," Father said.

Draco watched Father gently twirling the dark contents of his wine glass in between sips.

Bellatrix appeared in the doorway leading to the conservatory. She didn't come out completely, just hovered there noncommittally and called out, "When did you say He's coming Cissy?"

Mother, her back to Bella, rolled her eyes a bit and answered, "In about an hour, Bella." She didn't raise her voice the way her sister did. That was such a common way to behave, and when they were growing up, Bella had known this too.

Bellatrix must have heard Mother anyway, because Draco could see her mouth spread in an indecently-pleased, gap-toothed smile, and she turned back into the conservatory. Through the glass walls Draco watched his aunt heading into the house. She was practically skipping, he noted in mild disgust.

Draco felt Mother should have been more honest when she spoke of her sister, languishing in wizard's prisons. When he had come home for his summer holiday, right after he had learned of Father's capture in the Ministry, he knew he would finally meet this infamous aunt of his. His first thought on seeing her was that she wasn't pretty any more. In fact with her hollowed eyes, slovenly hair, and careless attire, his first impression of her was that she seemed a bit less the progeny of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black than he had been led to believe, and a good deal more feral. Sometimes first impressions are spot on. He had learned over the years why she'd received a life sentence in Azkaban. But torturing a couple of people into insanity, all in the name of restoring the magnificent Dark Lord, had seemed so noble and a bit glamorous to him then, when it was all just words.

The reality of the Cruciatus Curse was an entirely different thing in all its panoramic sick-making sounds and scents. He hadn't known that after thirty minutes of muscle-clenching agony blood vessels begin to rupture, nasal cavities start to leak mucus and blood, bladders release their contents, and eventually so will bowels. Draco hadn't known that after listening to screams of anguish for so long, they would embed themselves in his skull, so that hours later, no matter how exhausted he might be, the strangled, ear-splitting echoes would still be clashing and colliding inside his aching mind.

"So Poisson," Father interrupted these dire thoughts, "do you think you managed to gather some useful information for our master?"

She shrugged again.

Over the past couple of months of caring for Jane, the Malfoys had noticed that one of her few good qualities was her silence. She almost never spoke unless she absolutely had no other choice. She hummed incessantly and was outrageously uncouth, but other than that she didn't intentionally draw attention to herself. Well, that is, if you didn't count her stench. She always bobbed her head up and down, or shook it back and forth, to answer yes and no questions. She also had this irritating way of shrugging, even if they were asking her a question that other people might use as an invitation to give their opinion. Jane would just vaguely lift her shoulders. They could only assume that her extreme ignorance of the English language prevented her from understanding the words they used that contained more than two syllables. When they discussed this among themselves Father always said, "Well, I have to say I prefer a laconic mudblood to a garrulous one." And Mother and Draco instantly voiced their agreement. It was better all around that she spoke too little than too much.

"Did you have a good time playing in the woods, Poisson?" Mother asked her.

"She got stuck up that tree again," Draco imparted rancorously, glaring curses at her.

"It's not safe for you to climb trees, Poisson," Narcissa said calmly, in a pretense of concern.

"You're going to fall and get hurt," Lucius chimed in, sounding equally mock-mindful.

They were all looking at her to see how she would respond.

Jane just pulled her good leg - the left one - onto her chair, pulled her dress up and started picking at a scab on her knee, meanwhile giving everybody at the table an unobstructed view of her new white knickers. Draco and Father - who had been exposed to these types of unseemly displays before - scowled at each other, sharing a complicit revulsion of her immodesty and a tinge of shame on her behalf - since she apparently had none.

"Poisson!" Mother exclaimed, actually raising her voice. Draco knew she was angry at herself for being incensed to such unrefined measures, but mostly angry with Jane for making her behave in this brash way. "Put your dress down! How many times do I have to tell you that it's indecorous to expose your legs above your knees?"

Jane put her leg down.

Very slowly, as though he was addressing a person of substandard intelligence, and well, he was really, Draco fastened his gray eyes on her and said, "Indecorous… means… _not_ … _good_."

His parents started to snicker but their amusement swiftly transformed to disgust when they saw Jane stick her finger in her nose. All three of them groaned, and simultaneously cried, "Stop that!"

Jane got up and wandered toward the fountain. She seemed to love the bright blue and green fish living in its murky depths. It made sense that she had a preference for the slippery creatures, as she probably acknowledged them as kin.

"It's so degrading to have that thing here," Father said, quite monotonously Draco thought.

Lately Draco had begun to realize that he was angry with his father and mother. It wasn't an incendiary sort of anger that inflamed his mind and inspired rebellion, but merely a disapproving type of cool discontent that lapped icily at his insides. His entire life, Father and Mother had reared him in a thoughtless bubble of innocence and indulgence. He had been petted and pampered, puffed-up with praises of his positive perfections. He was wholly unprepared for the world of the Dark Lord and his aggressive followers. He now knew that his parents had been downright remiss in educating him. They should have exposed him to the…less appetizing aspects of torture and violence from an earlier age.

In their defense, Draco knew that neither of them had once entertained a hope that the Dark Lord would really rise again. He couldn't count the number of times he'd heard Father lamenting the loss of his master: the one wizard with enough power to restore the Pure-bloods to their proper status. But Draco had believed that reinstating their status would be limited to more bureaucratic practices, like not allowing mudbloods to attend Hogwarts, and making sure only the ethnically pure attained the highest positions in government and in the work force. Over the past year, since that night on the astronomy tower, the Dark Lord _had_ done these things. Albeit in the messiest manner possible.

"What is that, the third dress It's ruined this week?" Father asked.

He didn't really care about the dress. Martha, it transpired, had mastered quite a bit of magic that pertained to the mending and stain removal of garments. The Malfoys rarely had need for such things themselves, as they took meticulous care of all their possessions. They also replaced their wardrobes every few months, but Martha couldn't afford to do this. They weren't sure exactly how many children she had - it might have been anywhere from six to a round dozen as far as they were concerned, which wasn't at all. But even if Martha couldn't repair Jane's tattered dresses, the Malfoys would have just ordered some new ones from Twilfitt and Tatting's.

Draco was so sick of the mudblood. He knew he and his parents had little else to say to one another. Discussing their own lives, for which more than a few comparisons to the damaged condition of Jane's dresses could be fairly made, wasn't really an option for the Malfoys. So they simply discussed her, criticized her, admonished her, used her to make them feel better about themselves. They were also beginning to realize that Jane could potentially be on the brink of having a higher status with the Dark Lord than they did, or even would for a long time yet.

It wasn't as though Draco had thought the Dark Lord was going to be some fluffy, chummy man who would pinch his cheeks or keep sweets in his pocket to pass out to those who made clever jokes or pleased him. He'd just thought…a Death Eater meeting would be more like a formal dinner party, with plenty of polite conversation between sophisticated, well-dressed pure-bloods. He imagined everyone in attendance would all have the same cultured accents as him and his parents. Perhaps there might be an occasional bawdy joke spoken in French to excuse its lewd nature. They would discuss things in a civilized manner, make toasts with good liqueur, and there would be… a level of equality. And he never thought they would be forced to host these gory meetings against their will.

But however disappointed Draco might feel about Father and Mother glossing over the nastier aspects of the Death Eater life, he also was unspeakably grateful to them. Thank Merlin they'd had the sense to marry one another, and they'd given him an unblemished bloodline. By now he knew that, no matter what lowly position they might retain in their master's ranks, their spotless heredity lent them an iron-clad lifeline. That is, as long as they all kept their heads down and gave the right answers, which, given that they were all Slytherins, the ability to do these things was pretty much inherent.


	13. Birth of a Phobia

**Posted:** 12/05/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Birth of a Phobia**

 **15** **th** **August, 1998**

Narcissa lovingly caressed her string of milky pearls, willing their soft, almost malleable texture to soothe her. She examined her face in the wide mirror attached to her ivory-colored vanity, and compared the nacreous glow of the creamy orbs in her hand to the pallor of her skin. A corner of her pink mouth flickered upward with satisfaction, and the undiluted joy of self-love. She'd often been told how young she looked for her age and Cissa lapped up these compliments, the way those on the brink of death by dehydration guzzle water. She was still quite beautiful and she knew it.

Every morning, no matter what the day's gloomy forecast augured, she sat in front of her mirror and made up her face until it was the brightest ornament of every room. She made sure every hair of her brow was in its proper place, either smoothed down or removed. She curled her honeyed eyelashes, and darkened them, just a touch, to give them more length, and to add an extra element of depth to her ice blue eyes. She had a panoply of powders, some packed and others loose, with an array of brushes, sponges, and applicators, lined neatly up, like obedient servants waiting to do her bidding. She worked in the decadent creams, gently rubbing and patting, until every irreverent crease was filled in, obliterated. She dabbed and powdered away every natural variation of pigment and each stray lentigo. All of these magical mixtures, whether paid for or hand-made, were a more cleansing ablution than the hottest, sudsiest bath.

Narcissa's face was one of her most fortuitous attributes. She admired the curves of her high cheeks, the dainty shape of her small pointed chin, and she particularly loved the diaphanous sloping of her nose. She had a thing about noses, for she believed that a bad nose could destroy an otherwise perfect face. She studied them the way scholars assess runes. The subtle dints, the zig-zagging ridges, and the lamentable protrusions fascinated her. She didn't care for ninety-nine out of one hundred that she analyzed - or even less maybe - but she was exceedingly pleased with her own delicate unobtrusive one.

Narcissa had a very narrow concept of beauty. Her small family and a few of the better looking witches and wizards in her social circle were the only standards she could justify holding. Pale skin, the whiter the better, was the main criteria; blonde hair, if it could at all be managed; and slight features, even for men - although, men could usually achieve success with a more robust chin and hardier nose. But thin, fine-boned frames were a must for both sexes. Not like some of those churlish, hulking wizards that served the Dark Lord, like Macnair and Rowle. They made her shudder in revulsion. Lucius's slight build was her ideal; he was taller than her, and the breadth of his shoulders eclipsed her own, but only by the slenderest degrees.

She often wondered which would be worse, to stand in front of a crowd with a naked face, or a naked body. She was so used to seeing herself with a thick coating of cream over her skin that she could barely stand to look at it when it wasn't covered. It just seemed the most indecent thing imaginable.

Fortunately, she would never have to make that sort of choice. This thought was all that comforted her some days. No matter how old she grew, Cissa could always fall back on her dressing table. It would always support her, prop her up in times of despair. It was more than routine, much more than a ritual to her; it was the most pious prayer, an indispensable and unparalleled benediction. Even the morning after Lucius received his sentencing for Azkaban had found her here, for her mirror and her pots of epidermal potions were her sanctuary. Eventually decay would overcome her magical elixirs, but she wouldn't allow that to happen for another couple of decades. Her mother and her grandmother were her testaments of this happy fact. While it was true that time was her beauty's worst enemy, a shameful destroyer of youth and freshness, it was possible to stave it away until the eleventh hour. Narcissa wouldn't dwell on it. This truth was tantamount to the total collapse of her carefully constructed peace of mind.

For many hours, as a little girl, but even more so as an adolescent, her mother and her maternal grandmother had taken her to their own dressing tables and tutored her in the arts of beauty, grace, and poise. They had given her endless lectures, stressing the importance of taking care of her looks, and how she should go about highlighting it with the aid of cosmetics, jewelry, clothing, and accessories. They had indefatigably defined the exquisiteness of her golden tresses, her alabaster skin, and the sweet fragility of her brow, cheeks, mouth, nose and chin. Andromeda and Bella sat through these tedious monologues as well, but neither of them for as long as she. It was her arctic irises, and her fair, silky locks that singled her out from her sisters, who both had the misfortune to be born with brown hair and brown eyes. So she was the _pièce de résistance_ , the one who would make the most prestigious conquest; and Narcissa had certainly lived up to her birthright and made her family proud.

In the past two years alone, Narcissa felt that she had aged unforgivably. It was Lucius's fault of course, for going to prison and making it necessary for Draco to join the Death Eaters before he'd even reached an age of legal accountability. But she would never speak this thought aloud. Never. Acknowledging Lucius's shortcomings as a husband, a father, and a wizard would be even worse than their existing.

That was the problem right there. A husband, a father, and a wizard. Those, she knew, were the proper order, but not to him. Not to any man, probably. To Lucius it went: wizard, husband, father. It was why he couldn't make love to her, or stop drinking long enough to sober up for _three seconds_. Men could only be defined by their outward appearances and capabilities. Lucius was only what the world perceived him to be, in skill and rank. Without those he was like a meatless shell: cracked and empty. Eaten. But Narcissa was a mother and a wife, then a witch. She knew that with or without a wand, she would always be those things first and foremost. Lucius, though she and Draco still loved and respected him, and would forever, couldn't abide without a commendable position to his name. He was still a Malfoy, a beautiful, Pure-blooded Malfoy. The magic, and the proficiency and knowledge to make it and use it, were all inside of him still. This was a dark time for him, for them, yes; Narcissa couldn't deny that. But it wouldn't last forever. Life had at least taught her that much.

Narcissa hated the darkness of these ruminations and she did her best not to linger over them. She fastened the cord of pearls around her neck and then carefully selected a bracelet, a couple of rings and a set of ear bobs to match them. She crowned it all with a lavish brooch which she pinned with care to the lace of her décolletage. She stepped away from her behemoth altar and went to the full-length mirror beside her armoire to pay homage at the shrine of her entire reflection.

Narcissa swiveled this way and that, tilting her head and hips to appraise her loveliness from every angle available. Perfect.

She left the boudoir then, passed through the cathedral-like lavatory, and into her and Lucius's bedroom. Her lazy husband was gently snoring in the enormous four-poster bed. The satin sheets had slipped off his chest and his white-blonde hair was fanned out over the goose-down pillow. She'd been up for two hours now, bathing, dressing, and preening herself. They had a busy morning ahead of them and she was not about to let him shirk his duties for a lie-in.

She removed her wand from a strategically placed fold in her gown and with a broad arcing motion shifted the brocade drapes. Sunshine flooded the room, illuminating the gleaming chairs, tables, candelabra, and the marble mantleshelf.

Lucius began to mumble incoherently and tried to bury his face in the covers he had flung off while he slept. His slim arms fumbled in futility and then, giving up, he rolled onto his stomach and sandwiched his head between the mattress and pillow.

Narcissa sat down on the bed beside him and placed her middle and index finger on his back and began to slowly, playfully walk them up his soft skin. Nothing. She leaned down and kissed a languid, sensual trail from the waist of his pajama bottoms to the base of neck. He still didn't stir. Smiling even wider, Cissa pointed her wand at his bottom and whispered a steamy incantation right where his sensitive exit should be.

He started to growl and with serpentine reflexes he rolled around, grabbed her waist, and pinned her to the bed beneath him.

Her mouth was pulled back as far as it could go, exposing both rows of her lustrous teeth, and her eyes were shining with pleasure. Lucius was still growling, his blood-shot eyes narrowed to steely slots of flint.

"What sort of way is that to wake your husband, woman?" he asked in his rusty morning voice.

"The only way, apparently," she answered glibly.

His morning breath was terrible, but, slipping her hands into his silk trousers to cup his cheeks, she leaned up and captured his lower lip between her teeth, and languorously, flicking her tongue over the juicy morsel of his mouth, pulled it out, stretched it, gently raking her teeth along the length of it.

"Hmm," he moaned.

Her legs were hanging off the bed, bound in layers of skirt, tulle, and shift, but she longed to wrap them around him. He hadn't made love to her in two _years_ , and every time he touched her there was a conflagration under her skin and between her legs that he never doused. Would her husband never sate her again?

And sure enough, just as she knew he would, he released her and rolled away. Narcissa lay there for a moment, breathing hard and trying to swallow down the knot that seemed to have lodged painfully in her throat. Why didn't he want her? She had, more than once, considered donning a flimsy négligée and trying to seduce him. But if he were to reject even that overture, she would die.

Before Azkaban she would never have allowed him to make love to her when she had just stepped away from the labors of her toilette. Creasing her robes, mussing her hair and make-up, it would have been sacrilegious. But now… _now_ she would gladly sit through it all again for the sake of a sweaty, vigorous roll around their magnificent bed. Even if meant chancing the Dark Lord's ire.

After a moment, she felt Lucius maneuver himself off the bed and then heard the door of the en suite close. She stood up and began to straighten out her robes and smooth down her hair. It didn't matter. She was beautiful still and would remain so, whether she was properly made love to or not. _At least_ , she consoled herself, _I know he is not getting it somewhere else_. And he never would. She had made sure of that on their wedding night.

She left their room and made the short journey down the corridor to the spare room where Jane slept. She unlocked the door, let herself in, and used her wand to pull the heavy curtains back from the windows. She went to the bed and studied the sleeping mudblood with a detached gaze of cold disdain. But as the day's agenda unfolded in her mind, her thoughts softened a bit. Having Jane here was a despicable tragedy - that was undeniably true - but experimenting on her was turning out to be a surprisingly agreeable education for them all.

The Dark Lord had brought them a vial of riptaseura blood. It was one of the rarest substances in the world, and she, Narcissa Malfoy, had not only got to hold it, but she had been allowed to mix up a concoction of Diosponia Descratos with it. It was indubitably the most complex and challenging potion she'd ever had the pleasure to brew. It was also a darker magic than she had ever dreamed. Delicate, dangerous, and so, so beautiful in its all-consuming power, the entire Brewery had been suffused with a soft blue glow during the last stages of its completion. Once the light had faded, and she and Lucius knew it was ready, they had carefully ladled some into a cup and handed it to the vermin to sip. If she or Lucius had drunk it they would have spent the next twenty-four hours seeping blood from every pore and orifice of their bodies, while uncontrollable bursts of magic shot out from their bodies, destroying every living thing within a seven mile radius, and then they would have died. If an ordinary muggle had drunk it, they would have simply bled to death, slowly. Jane had just got some hiccups.

Then there had been the day their master had brought an Orb of Thanatos for the cockroach to fondle. He'd kept it sheathed carefully in a thick, black velvet cloth, and as he slowly unwrapped it, Cissa, Lucius and Bellatrix had all let out loud sighs of amazement and longing. There were only three of these orbs known to be in existence, and every legend on earth traced their inception back to Merlin.

Being careful not to let it touch his skin, he had instructed the freak-of-nature to pick it up. She had been scared to touch it, as though even she could sense its power. As she gazed at it, Jane had seemed drawn to it. All six of them felt compelled to touch this priceless artifact; that was a part of its deep magic. The glass ball encased a shadowy, shifting black smoke, while a muted crimson pulsed and writhed in the center, seeming to beckon any observer. Narcissa had had to use every fibre of strength she possessed to tear her eyes from it, and use a spell to restrain Draco from reaching out for it. He couldn't seem to rally the resolve he needed to escape that overpowering call, and, like Jane, he was taking steps toward it.

Jane had slowly crossed the room to it, lifted her small hand out for it. "Is so perty," she'd crooned softly. But just as she came close enough to pick it up, she had stopped, dropped her hand, and looked up at the Dark Lord. "What's it?"

"An Orb of Thanatos, child," he had answered her. He was more patient with Jane than Narcissa had ever imagined possible. "Now touch it."

"What's it doin'?" she had asked quietly; wisely wary.

"If you're pure of heart, then nothing," he answered, and then he laughed one of his cold, mirthless laughs that Narcissa always thought could maybe kill a baby.

Bellatrix, for some inexplicable reason, had joined his laughter. Narcissa was sure that whatever the Dark Lord had found amusing, it was something that nobody else would ever fully grasp. But, unless he was directing his cruel, mocking jibes at her, Bella always laughed when he did. She was desperate that he, and everybody else should think she understood him completely.

"Touch it," he had commanded, his tone ringing with his authority.

Slowly, so slowly, Jane had clamped her eyes on it once more, and tentatively applied the pad of her index finger on it. When nothing happened, she seemed to grow braver and had used the palm of her hand to caress it.

"Is warm," she told them. "Can I's holded it?"

"Be careful with it," he told her, and allowed her to take it from him.

She cradled it cautiously with both hands like an ostrich egg, smiling at it. Narcissa could see the flickering red center of it reflecting off Jane's glasses. Then she had done something that they rarely witnessed. She laughed. Her laughter was the antithesis of the Dark Lord's, warm, deep and pregnant with lilting inflections.

"S'I per of 'eart then?" she asked the room.

"No. You are unaffected by its power, Jane," the Dark Lord had informed her calmly.

"'Ow you's bein' knowed that?" she asked.

Bellatrix had scoffed in loud disgust at her impertinence.

But the Dark Lord did not seem at all offended by her question. He, like the Malfoys, could detect nothing but curiosity in her voice. Not the insolence that Bella apparently imagined.

"If you were a normal person, the moment you touched it, you would have fallen to the floor and been rendered senseless. Your spirit would have been instantly transported to the underworld and, once there, you would have come face-to-face with the three Harbingers of Fate, mythically known as the Moirai. They would pass judgment over your life thus far, and only if you were found to be unsullied and innocent would you have been allowed to return to your body and continue your earthly existence. If found wanting, they should have sent you to straight to Hades."

Her eyes widened with transparent astonishment as he had explained all this to her.

"You's be touchin' it?" she had asked, clearly incredulous.

He laughed again, and this time Lucius and Narcissa had joined him and Bella, easily able to share his amusement at her childish ignorance.

"Nobody lays hands on them on purpose. Only the unlearned or the undisciplined will be foolish enough to deliberately handle one. I thought, for a brief moment, that you were being pulled in by its magic, as I watched you cross the room for it; but when you stopped and asked me what it was, I realized that you were attracted merely by the glowing center, simple-minded as you are." Bella snorted derisively at this comment. "There are many legends in the world of magic that describe these orbs and the terrible uses to which their powers have been put. Originally, there were seven. Three have been destroyed, three are kept well-guarded, one in China, one in Romania, and one in… _America_." His eyes narrowed on the last word. "But this one was lost. Every historical record of them clearly states that they were created right here, in Great Britain. But the countries which have them will not return them to us. So I, long ago, decided to find this one, to bring it back home where it belongs.

"I followed the legends; broke into magical strongholds to examine ancient texts around the world. I gathered every clue, until, finally, all the pieces fell into place. I made my way to the Andes of Peru, and buried deep in the mountains, in the ruins of a crumbling temple, I followed the hieroglyphic runes carved into the disintegrating stones and, as was inevitable, I unearthed it from a heavily protected sarcophagus."

"Master," Bellatrix practically moaned, her eyes glistening with tears of love and admiration, "I wish I could have been there with You. The things You've seen and done…" She trailed off, unable to finish due to her overpowering emotions.

"Nobody has seen and done what I have, or can even comprehend my unsurpassed erudition. Nobody." He stated this simply, not exactly bragging, just laying down an indisputable fact. And even Narcissa couldn't help feeling impressed by it. Thank Morgana they had aligned themselves with him.

Sometimes Narcissa thought it was almost worth having Jane here with them, just so they could witness and participate in the Dark Lord's experiments on her. Of course, each time they gave her a poison to drink, or cast a near-fatal curse at her, or instructed her to touch an object that should have damaged, if not killed, her, Narcissa could not help hoping, _every_ time, that this might be the piece of magic that would prove the exception. If Jane would only die, their lives would be much easier.

Narcissa took a few steps closer to the sleeping child and looked her over. As the ripe smell of her assaulted Cissa's nose, she scowled and retreated a bit, then sighed. How many days had it been since she had argued and threatened Jane into the bath? Four perhaps, maybe five. She had sincerely hoped that the Dark Lord might lay down a dictum for Jane to bathe herself every day or two, but he had not. In fact, whenever Jane picked her nose, or broke wind, or exposed her thighs, or belched, or engaged in any unsavory conduct, he just smirked at the Malfoys, as though it were all a brilliant joke. Well, Cissa had realized ages ago that he had a rather warped sense of humor.

With a simple spell, Cissa took some dollops of water from a glass on the small stand beside the bed. She began to disperse it, in the form of a fine mist, over Jane's face. Jane immediately opened her eyes and sat up, wiping the cold moisture off her face. Then she fixed Narcissa with a look of deepest loathing, which Narcissa returned steadfastly.

"Get in the bath, Poisson," Narcissa said.

"Why?" she asked, as she reached for her glasses and put them on.

"Because you stink," Cissa told her bluntly.

"I's do not," was her irritating reply.

"Yes you do. And we're sick of your stench, you filthy animal," Cissa said calmly, trying not to lose her cool façade in the face of Jane's impudent apathy.

"Well, I ent" she said. "Sides, I's just 'avin' one."

Jane threw back her covers and then she reached for her artificial leg. Every night she propped it up on a pillow, and then she drew the blanket up around the lower half of it, as though it were an honored guest. It might have been amusing, if it weren't so disgusting and _odd_.

Narcissa cast her eyes at the floor when Jane lifted her nightgown and started to attach the false limb to the stub of her leg, which ended right above where her knee should have begun. Her deformity was, in Cissa's opinion, the most repulsive facet of Jane's appearance. It was grosser than her mustache and that frizzy, oily mop atop her head, which looked like an exceptionally thick, wooly cap. Her handicap was even more obscene than her dusky skin.

It took Narcissa a moment to pick up the thread of her argument. "That was five days ago, Poisson. You have to start bathing more frequently. This isn't an acceptable way for you to take care of yourself. A lady should always make sure she smells good."

"I's ent a lady, 'member?"

 _You're telling me_ , she thought.

"Nonetheless, you are female. Members of the opposite sex do not like females that smell as though they have just finished playing in the toilet."

After she climbed down from the bed, Jane looked at Cissa and asked, "So would I's bein' doin' it for Mr. Malfoy, your son, or the Dark Lord?"

Narcissa narrowed her eyes at this remark. "Don't you dare get cheeky with me, you perverse little cripple," she admonished, her voice rising a bit with her anger. She could feel her face flushing with anger at Jane's saucy remark. "You have to take a bath. Now, Poisson. Clean yourself up before you come for breakfast."

"Or what?"

"Or you will not receive any."

Jane merely scoffed at this hollow threat.

"And then I'll have Lucius and Draco throw you in the shower, naked, and hose you down with hot water," Cissa told her, calm and in control once more.

Since neither reasoning nor the simple satisfaction of actually being clean and smelling good would work on the brat, Cissa had to fall back on this old threat. Morgana only knew what measures Cissa would have to take if this type of intimidation ever lost its credit with the grubby child. Probably she, with the help of Bellatrix, would wind up disrobing her, and take turns holding her down in the bath while the other soaped her off. She fervently hoped it would never come to that, but what else could they do? They already had to keep at least two or three feet away from Jane just to skirt the radius of her noxious miasma.

Thankfully, Jane's eyes tinged with fear at Cissa's words, and she limped to the lavatory. Narcissa waited until she heard the bathwater running, before she went to wake Draco.

 **~x~}{~x~**

"The Gorlatsia's looking good," The Dark Lord said, idly stirring the cauldron before him. "Nice vermillion shade. Excellent."

He moved to another, smaller cauldron, and used his wand to gently siphon some of the hot, bubbling liquid out and then let it fall back into the pot. "This is too thick!"

"My lord, I have not added the petrified amphibian eyeballs to it yet," Narcissa rapidly explained, her voice slightly constricted with her anxiety.

"Shouldn't you have added them a few hours ago?"

"Not according to the copy of Potentia's Guide to Darker Potion Making that you gave me to use," she told him. "The potion has to simmer for another six hours, and then I have to-"

"Alright, alright," he cut her off. "Do you have Thursday's list of spells?"

"It is here, my lord," Lucius informed him collectedly.

The Dark Lord looked over the sheet of parchment that Malfoy handed him and ran his eyes down the line of spells.

"Who performed the Clabersternium Curse on her?"

"I did, My Lord," Bella stated hurriedly, her eyes shining with pride.

"Are you sure you cast it properly?" he asked, his voice thick with doubt.

Bella's face grew quite red at this inquiry. "Yes, My Lord," she said with the faintest touch of sulkiness.

"Have you ever used it on someone besides Jane?"

"Yes, My Lord," she said, nodding vigorously. "When I was twenty-nine I performed it on my cousin Fabian Prew-"

"That's fine then," he interjected, uninterested in being subjected to another of Lestrange's stories of her magical prowess. "This is pretty good. There are only five incantations that you three do not know, out of sixty-three. That is a vast improvement from the last list I gave you. I have made up a new one." With his wand, the Dark Lord materialized a thick roll of parchment and handed it to Lucius. "I want you to get through as many of them as you can in the next four days."

"Yes, my lord," the three Malfoys and Bella answered quickly.

He moved around the Brewery examining the different potions, each in different stages of completion, praising a few, but for the most part, criticizing.

Jane was exploring the tiny drawers of a miniature bureau that rested on top of a table. She was poking through each small receptacle, pulling out potion ingredients and bringing them up to her nose for tentative whiffs. She never grew bored of being in the Brewery. She would probably be content to spend hours in it, examining all the various herbs and jars of preserved livers, tongues, and other organs. Sometimes she asked them questions about her discoveries, which the Malfoys would reluctantly answer. Bella usually told her, in a very unladylike way, to shut it. She also liked to look through their collection of potion grimoires, gasping and making horrified faces over the grotesque illustrations of people being flayed, eviscerated, or otherwise maimed, all while still alive.

Jane wandered over to another table in the middle of the room and began to study an ornately carved wooden box that the Dark Lord had brought with him. It looked quite old and worn. She traced her fingers over the scallops edging the rims and then ran them across the geometric patterns incised into the sides and top.

"What's it?" she asked quietly.

The Dark Lord's eyes lit up at her query and a small grin twisted the corners of his thin mouth. "You shall see soon enough, little one."

Jane gulped. Bella beamed.

"Come and sit here, my dear," he instructed her, resting one of his white spidery hands across the back of a fauteuil that he had ordered Draco to fetch when he first arrived.

At the words 'my dear' Bella's eyes darkened and her brows drew together.

Jane slowly shuffled across the room and sat down.

"Did you happen to overhear Danvers telling his wife whether he had changed his mind, when you slipped away yesterday evening?" he asked her. He began to cast some spells at her.

Everybody's ears perked up at his question. The Dark Lord had never discussed anything of this nature with Jane in front of them before. They were intensely curious about this ability of hers, but she never talked about it with them, and pressing her for information about it seemed imprudent.

"Um," she began. "'E's were sayin' it to 'er 'bouts it at supper."

"What did he say?"

She brought her small hand up and started to fidget with the neck of her gown. "'E's sayin' 'e'd do it."

"Do what?"

"Vote's 'gainst it. But then a man be comin' over. It were that man, Goodbell, and when they's goin' to anuvver room for smokin' an' drinkin' togever, then 'e's sayin' to 'im that they's just ought to vote to do away's wif it."

The Dark Lord laughed. "And how did Goodbell respond to this?"

Jane was steadily, rhythmically swiveling her good leg in little half arcs. "'E were sprised, yeah? And 'e's sayin that they's shouldna be timidatered by you or any uvvers oo'd be freaterninim' 'em. But Danvers, 'e's just shakin 'is 'ead like, an then 'e says to Goodbell, 'e could do as 'e's pleasin', but 'e's ent riskin' 'is family fer the Muggles."

"Well, what did Goodbell say to that?" he pressed her, his eyes fixed on her with a manic glow.

"Well, e's seemin' right sad, or somefink. 'E's ent sayin nuffink fer a whiles. Then 'e's says it's no good. Iffin Danvers _and_ Boofby bofes goin' gainst 'im then 'e can't see no point in going fer it all's alone like."

He laughed again, with unrestrained pleasure at this news. "Excellent. That's excellent, Jane. Did you watch Goodbell after he left?"

She nodded.

"Did he go to that whore, again?"

She nodded.

"Did he talk to her?"

She nodded.

"Well," he said impatiently.

Jane sighed. She laced her twiggy fingers into her nest of hair and started tugging at it.

"'E, um, 'e's be sayin to 'er… that they's maybe oughtta just be's going."

"Going? Where?"

"Spain. Or maybe Greece."

The Dark Lord ceased his spell-casting at these words. Narcissa watched him, could see his brain working rapidly at this unexpected turn of events.

"Did he tell her how they would get out of England?"

She shrugged. "'E's sayin 'ow 'e being knowed a wizard could 'elp them."

"Did he tell her this wizard's name?"

Jane shook her head. She kept her eyes on the window.

The Dark Lord walked over to her and bent himself at the waist, until he was leaning over the mudblood. He rested his hand on her upper arm as he spoke to her.

"Look at me," he commanded. She obeyed him. "You know that if you ever lie to me, and mark my words, I will find out, I will have Bellatrix take you into the woods behind the manor and slit your throat. You know that, don't you Jane?"

Jane simply nodded at him, and from the phlegmatic manner with which she absorbed this threat, Narcissa thought that it must be something he told her quite often.

"She's stuffed," Jane told him.

"Who's… _What_?"

"Marie. She's…gonna 'ave a baby."

The Dark Lord stood up and gave her a piercing, searching look. "Did she say it was his?"

Jane nodded.

"Does he believe her?"

She nodded again.

The Dark Lord walked around the Brewery without saying anything for a while.

"Did you see or overhear anything else that I should know, Jane?"

She shook her head.

"Put your arms down," he commanded.

Jane stopped her restless movements and looked at him uncertainly. She casually lowered her hands to her lap.

"No. I want you to put them on the armrests," he corrected her. He watched as she put them up on the wooden panels. "That's a good girl."

With a casual flick of his wand, ropes flew out and snaked themselves tightly up the length of her arms, down her legs as well, and also around her chest and stomach, until her circumscription was total. She immediately started to cry and struggle.

"Please! I's ent be lying, I's swears it!"

"Quiet down!"

She ceased her useless pleas but continued to cry and strain against her bindings.

"I believe you," he told her. He went and picked up his involute box from the table.

"This is something that needs to be done. I have given you some of this to drink in potions, however," and using magic, he opened the lid of the box and levitated a black and bright orange spider out of it - its body was the size of a saucer, "I would like to see what happens your blood is directly envenomed."

He floated the spider towards her.

"NO! PLEASE! NO DON'T!"

Jane was completely hysterical by this point. She started to scream, her eyes were stretched out until the whites were exposed on every side, and she kept them locked on the enormous, exotic arachnid coming closer and closer to her.

The spider was flailing angrily, uncomfortable with its inability to find purchase on anything solid, while its huge mandibles clicked loudly.

Bella was beside herself with excitement. Her lips parted as she softly panted and her pupils dilated.

Narcissa felt a small pocket of hope bubbling inside her chest that this might be the end of the mudblood, and Lucius silently shared this sentiment. Draco, who always made an effort to keep well out of the way when the Dark Lord was present, wandered over to the window and gazed out onto the prolific grounds.

"Calm down child!" the Dark Lord loudly rebuked her. "Its fangs are quite tiny!"

But Jane did not mind him. She continued to cry and scream and beg.

He carefully lowered the spider onto her lap. They watched as it seemed to get its bearings for a moment. Then it started to climb up her chest. It finally decided to plant its fangs into her right shoulder.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"


	14. Philter

**Posted:** 12/05/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **Philter**

 **28** **th** **August, 1998**

Afterward, though he tried his best not to remember it _at all_ , Draco understood it was nothing like love. It was just filthy, unassailable obsession. Obviously he did not care about doing what was best for Jane, because he wanted to do a load of debauched things to her that no eighteen year old man should ever seriously contemplate doing to a twelve year old girl. Even was she a long-haired, Pure-blood beauty, instead of that frumpy freaky mudblood. But it was as though her name became his heartbeat in that twenty-four hour span of his life. Rather than pumping da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, it beat: Ja-Jane, Ja-Jane, Ja-Jane. Jane Wellington - every lungful of air that he inhaled, exhaled. Jane in, Jane out. In and then out. Her image completely dispersed through every last scintilla of his body; his blood; and muscles and sinews; in the bones. Jane, Jane, Jane to the ultimate power.

Jane was exquisite. Her big red mouth looked luscious, and he even thought those gigantic spectacles were sexy and made her seem - of all the ludicrous things - very _intelligent_. Jane was quite witty to him on the Love Potion day.

After it exited his body, Draco asked Mother when Poisson had last bathed, and Narcissa - instinctively understanding why he needed to know this - assured him that she had impelled Jane to wash herself up only the day before. Thank _Merlin_. Not that it had mattered to him while he was under the effects of that odious magic. Quite the reverse. While that liquescent deceiver was sinuating through his veins, her pungent effluvia would have presented like the most intoxicating, Parisian perfume.

Who could have guessed that that fat idiot, Professor Slughorn, could have been right about something? Amorentia seemed a darker and astronomically more dangerous magic than the Draught of Living Death to him - the next day. And everyday forever more.

Jane - that sly little voyeur - had taken prodigious advantage of his addled frame of mind, and spent a good portion of the afternoon having him play games with her. Mother and Father had not interfered, seeming to think it was the safest way to keep him occupied and within their much-needed vigilance; not that Draco had failed to do his best to lure her somewhere, _anywhere_ else, so he could try to have his way with her in private. Uugh! He wanted to vomit when he remembered the vile fantasies he'd had about that deformed Muggle.

The Dark Lord really _really_ despised Draco. This is what the entire experience had impressed on him, in the end. He had known that his family's master did not like or even respect him, thought him weak and utterly worthless - that was abundantly apparent. But until the day He made Draco drink the love potion, all in the name of "experimentation", Draco did not realize how much the Dark Lord…just _hated_ him.

 **~x~}{~x~**

The Malfoys' days fell into a routine that revolved around Jane. Every morning after breakfast they escorted her downstairs to the Brewery and gave her potions to drink. After this, they cast charms, hexes, jinxes, and curses at her in turn. The Dark Lord supplied them with lists of things to try on her and records were scrupulously made of all the unsuccessful magic - they also had to make notes for the marginalia about any side effects. Every once in a while Jane would sneeze, or giggle, or cough, or get a violent case of the hiccups. Most often, if she had to drink large amounts of potions, she would get a stomach-ache, and a few times she was sick. Luckily, Jane always seemed to know when this was about to happen, and lunged for a rubbish bin that they kept nearby specifically for these occasions.

For the spells, Draco borrowed Mother's wand first, and scanned his way down the parchment, scouting the ones he knew from school, or that had previously been taught him by Father and his auntie. Then, also with Mother's wand, Lucius or Bellatrix would take the list from him, and between the two of them they could make a much bigger dint in the catalog.

They often taught Draco the complicated curses, showing him the wrist movements and repeating the incantations to him. Draco could not decide who was a better mentor, Father or Aunt Bellatrix. Father would often explain the theory behind the spell, and frequently these tidbits of insight were all he needed to fully grasp it. On the other hand, if he didn't pick them up after couple of tries Father tended to get impatient and critical. Aunt Bella never bothered to explain _anything_ , but she never grew impatient with him either. She actually had this useful knack for helping him memorize the wrist flicks. She would gently place her long fingers over his hand and wrist, and then she would carefully guide his motions with them. She would show him unwearyingly - as many times as Draco might need - without ever losing her head. It was odd how patient a teacher she could be, when the rest of the time she was so touchy and erratic. All in all, he picked them up fairly quickly, for which his father would sometimes praise him. These words of commendation pleased Draco in a way that nothing else could touch.

Lucius and Bellatrix had entered into an implicit competition. Every day they would each tally the number of spells they knew and announce it to the room. Draco tried to keep a running total of them in his head, but math was not exactly a strong suit of his. He was fairly certain from Father's sidelong grins that he was winning.

They usually spent a couple of hours in the Brewery and then Jane went to play in her room until dinner. Since they had purchased toys and paints for her in Diagon Alley, she tended not to wander off so much and managed to keep herself contently occupied. She loved these little figurines that wore decadent gowns and robes, and the replicates were enchanted to move around on their own. Jane did not go anywhere without at least of few of them stuffed in her pockets. The Malfoys endured many a teatime with the tiny witches and wizards caroming around the table, knocking over the salt and pepper shakers and their wide skirts sweeping silverware to the floor. Jane spent rainy afternoons lying on the floor of the sitting-room making up silent stories and moving her little people about, to act them out in soundless plays. She also spent a good deal of her spare time painting pictures and then having one of the Malfoys hang them in the alcove around the deep window seats in her room.

If Jane hadn't been able to slip away the evening before, then Narcissa had to send their master a message, using her patronus, letting him know. Then they usually wouldn't have to see the Dark Lord at all that day; for if he did come, he conducted his business downstairs and didn't bother to see them.

At supper, Bella always informed them whether or not He'd been in the house each day. She spent most of her free time in the parlor, taking and dispensing messages from other Death Eaters, and trying to seem as useful as she could to her Master. In fact, every Sunday evening would find her sitting outside the large dining room that he used for his weekly meetings. She was still prohibited from attending them, but she wanted to be as close to them, to Him, as possible.

If Jane had slipped away then the Dark Lord would show up in the early afternoon. He would often lead them to the Brewery for progress reports and to update their instructions. Then he would take Jane to her room, and there have her give reports about her phantom excursions into the lives and homes of his adversaries.

After the Dark Lord had done with her, they would usually go outside for a few hours until five o'clock, and then Jane would eat a large snack, before going to her room to lie down and try to spy. Whether she did or not, she usually stayed in there for at least an hour. When she rejoined them in the sitting-room she would often be hungry again and then either Rumpa or Narcissa - for by that late hour Martha had gone home - would fetch a plate for her of reheated food.

The Malfoys were quite amused by Jane's behavior toward Rumpa. It was as though she thought the elf was a proper person, and she always used the nicest manners with her, and often tried to engage her in conversation. They tried explaining to her about house-elves, how they preferred to be paid as little attention as possible, and how not doing so might give them ideas above their station. But Jane just didn't seem to get it. No surprise there. She continued to 'please' and 'thank' her, and would often ask Rumpa questions about her family and her life. The Malfoys didn't really think that Jane could destroy Rumpa's sense of her place in the world. After all, Jane was practically a house-elf herself.

Rumpa clearly didn't know what to make of Jane as her status within the household was so undefined. The first time Jane saw Rumpa, she held her hand out and introduced herself to it, for all the world as though they were meeting at a tea party or a picnic. Rumpa was so shocked she almost lost her magical grip on the pile of linens she was levitating. The mossy little elf had looked to the Malfoys for guidance. Should she ignore the Muggle? The Malfoys didn't say or do anything to indicate to her that she shouldn't accept this unusual offer of acquaintanceship, so she had lightly shaken Jane's hand, made a little bow to her, and told the child her name. Jane had giggled and clapped and, holding out either side of skirt, made a rather graceless bow right back to her, as though it were all a delightful game.

"You's gonna 'ave a baby?" Jane had asked. "Or you's just fat?

"Rumpa having a baby, miss," Rumpa had responded in her squeaky voice.

"Is you's wantin' a boy or girl?" Jane next wanted to know.

Her eyes darted to the Malfoys for a moment and she said, "A girl, miss."

"Wotcha gonna be namin' it?" Jane asked.

"Well, Rumpa think Domba, miss, fer a girl, and Rumby fer a boy," she told her.

"When you's be 'aving it, can I's 'olded it?" she'd implored.

The elf almost lost her hold on the clean sheets again. "Well," she hesitated. No human, to her knowledge, had ever asked a house-elf such a thing before. "Rumpa supposes miss can hold it. Miss…miss Jane will be careful with it, won't you?"

Jane had cryptically swiped an invisible X over her chest and said, "Cross my 'eart. I's only be 'olded it's whiles I sittin down like. So's I won't be falling over wif it."

Lame Jane had this hilarious tendency to trip over the thick rugs laid all around the manor. It made for a good laugh at least once a day.

That was the beginning of Jane's friendship with Mrs. Black's elf. They only admonished Jane for talking to her when they worried it might interfere with her work.

Martha was a completely different cauldron of cares. She, like the Malfoys, detested mudbloods. It was the only reason she'd stayed on to work for them after Lucius was revealed as a Death Eater. She thought he and his family had the right idea about joining up with the Dark Lord. Not that this endeared her to them in any way. Had the circumstances been different, they would have made a more concentrated effort to replace her years ago.

She seemed to really enjoy working in the Dark Lord's headquarters, though she wasn't so fond of cleaning up after the disgusting Snatchers, and even some of the Death Eaters, that spoiled the rugs and furniture. She'd flirt and jibe and mess about with the disheveled Snatchers, and have a jolly time of it. All of the Dark Lord's low-class servants enjoyed gadding about with the Malfoys' maid. But once the party was over, and they had all departed, she would grumble and sulk while she had to clean up the cigarette butts and the food and alcohol stains they left over every surface of the drawing room, dining room, and the parlor where they congregated. For the life of her, Narcissa couldn't understand how Martha could stand around, making her tawdry innuendos with a yellow-toothed, greasy-haired wizard, who was half her age, all the while watching as he flicked the ashes off of his cigar into a priceless antique vase, and then complain about washing it out afterward.

When Martha had realized that Jane was a Muggle, she had tried to tender her resignation. Fortunately, Lucius had managed to convince her to stay.

"I sure as 'Ades ent staying to wait on no damn Muggle!" she had cried, storming into the sitting-room.

It only took her a few days to figure it out. The Malfoys never discussed anything significant around Martha. Even if she was wise enough to keep her loud mouth shut when it came to the Dark Lord's affairs, she wouldn't scruple to spread rumors about her employers' personal lives. If one of them so much as accidentally broke wind in front of her, which they luckily did not often do, they could be sure that Martha would announce it high and low. Servants, human servants that is, gossiped.

"She's here on the Dark Lord's orders," Lucius calmly informed the loud-mouthed wench.

"I don't care!" she had erupted. "I sure as shite won' be cleaning 'er dirty linens, or cleaning 'er toilets! The day I'm being asked to serve a mudblood is my last day in your service!"

Then she'd stomped out of the room.

Narcissa was quite alarmed by this development. Without Martha, she would wind up doing the cleaning and cooking. The chances of them coming across another maid who didn't mind waiting in a manor that the Dark Lord frequented were zero to nil.

"Lucius!" she had exclaimed through her teeth in a constricted hiss. "Do something!"

Lucius hesitated for a moment before asking Cissa for her wand. As soon as she handed it to him, he'd dashed after the dumpy witch.

He caught up with her on one of the second-floor landings, located closer to the kitchens.

"Wait Martha," he had commanded.

She didn't stop. A wandless wizard had little authority in her opinion.

He had to reach out and grab her by the arm, spin her around to face him, and he decided to keep a firm grip on her.

Martha, for the five years she had attended Hogwarts, was in Slytherin. She'd had to drop out of school when, at sixteen, she became pregnant with her oldest child. It was one of the reasons that she loved working for the Malfoys, and the reason she'd always hated them so much. The recent reduction in their status, with virtually everybody, made Martha enjoy her work for them in ways she never thought she'd live to see.

Despite her hatred of her persnickety employers, and her glee with their current loss of stature, Lucius Malfoy's hand around her arm sent tingling waves of pleasure coursing under her skin. Her mouth parted as she looked up at the rich, careworn, but nevertheless still-handsome man standing over her. She hadn't been touched by anybody of his distinguished class, not purposefully, since she was young and fresh, with clear skin and good teeth. Under usual circumstances, Lucius didn't bother looking at her, unless it couldn't be helped.

If Lucius had realized that Martha's even ruddier complexion and heavy panting were due to lascivious notions, he would have released her immediately and hastily retreated a pace or two away from the nasty witch, despite the fact that it was a form of power over her. However, he mistook these physical changes as manifestations of her fear of him.

Lucius looked down at the florid-faced witch, trying for once to disguise his contempt.

"We're willing to offer you a generous raise," he said without preamble.

"You couldn't pay me enough," she said with a wry expression which turned her miniscule lips and chunky cheeks to mismatched whorls. Then she added, sardonically, " _Sir_."

"I doubt that," Lucius said with complete confidence. In his experience _everybody_ had a price.

"Mr. Malfoy, servants like me are in 'igh demand. No amount of gold's going to persuade me to clean up after a filthy Muggle," she spat at him.

"We'll double your pay," he retorted, quickly deciding this wasn't a situation that warranted haggling.

She just shook her head slowly and narrowed her small, piggy eyes. "You could offer me every galleon in your fat vault, and I wouldn't touch it."

Lucius couldn't believe that Martha was as principled as this. Of course, if he was honest, no amount of gold would ever propel him to house a mudblood. He was only doing it on pain of death. But he couldn't imagine someone as near-destitute as Martha would ever turn her nose up at such an offer.

Martha could have supported a moderate-sized family comfortably with the wages she earned from her position with the Malfoys, but every year or so she was in childbed again. Narcissa had once confessed to Lucius that she had generously offered to supply Martha with as much contraceptive potions as she'd liked. But Martha had, less than politely, declined her assistance. Other than an occasional gardening job for the Malfoys, her husband, as far as Lucius knew, didn't work much, drank a great deal, and mostly depended on his wife's income.

However, it was true that if she left the Malfoys, now that the world knew they were consorting with You-Know-Who, she could easily obtain a new position, with or without a good reference. If money wouldn't work, then Lucius decided he would have to give her a good dose of fear, and perhaps a drop or two of the truth.

He pulled out Cissa's wand, which he had kept concealed in his sleeve until that point. He held it casually by his side, and watched Martha silently taking it in.

She returned her eyes to his and said, "Even if you was to curse me, wouldn't do you much good. Not fer what you're wanting me fer."

He smiled a bit and took a deep breath through his nose. "I know that Martha. I'm not going to curse you. Or hex you. My aim is simply to warn you."

He paused and let the silence stretch out, tautly, while the message sank in.

"Warn me 'bout what?" she asked, a note of caution in her voice now.

"Well, you see," he started, lowering his voice and leaning in a bit, "over the past year of your service with us, you've been privy to many of the comings and goings of certain dark witches and wizards, and most especially He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. I'm sure you've overheard a great deal that was never meant for your ears."

"So?"

"I don't think the Dark Lord would be pleased to discover that anyone such as yourself, with as much information about his business as you've likely gleaned, has decided to take up employment elsewhere."

"'E ent gonna care if you and your wife 'as to scrub your own toilets," she told him scornfully.

"Of course he won't, you fool," he snapped, losing his patience with the daft cow. He collected himself, and decided to try again, with plainer language. "If I tell the Dark Lord you've gone to work for someone else, I might let slip that you've suffered some…problems with his agenda."

"I 'ave not!" she bellowed.

"He'll believe me, though."

"I don't know about that now, see. 'E might just see right through you," was her cool return. "After all, Mr. Malfoy," she didn't dare call him Lucius, not while he held a wand, though she longed to, "you ent exactly 'is 'ighest ranked servant no more, is ya?"

That stung. Lucius could no longer deceive himself into believing that Martha was oblivious to his depleted standing within the chain of command, feeble hope though it had been. But remaining composed was, he knew, the key to this bluff. It might not even be a bluff. Every word he was speaking to her could be completely true. There was just no telling when it came to his master.

"Perhaps," he pretended to concede. "He still won't like the idea of you trading kitchen gossip with the servants in other households, once I've planted the idea in his mind."

"I do that anyway," she was foolish enough to admit.

Lucius grinned, broadly. And she seemed to shrink a bit, once the recklessness of her concession had the chance to reverberate around her half-empty head for a few moments.

"Exactly," he stated succinctly. "Now then, I suggest that you not only accept my more than generous offer of a doubled salary, but also that you resign yourself to the idea that the little mudblood might be with us for quite a while."

"Might?" she asked. "You saying she might not?"

Lucius eyes clouded over a bit before he decided to reply with, "He could, even now, be looking for a…more appropriate situation for her."

"What's she doing 'ere anyway," Martha wanted to know. She couldn't conceive of anything to explain Jane's presence.

"My master has…recruited her, in a manner of speaking. She," he hesitated then, not liking to admit the truth about Jane, but knowing that Martha needed a solid reason to stay if she was expected to do anything as base as wait on a mudblood. "She has a...power."

"Tosh!" she spouted in disbelief.

Lucius narrowed his eyes and looked down his nose at Martha. "It's the truth. The Dark Lord believes she'll be useful to him."

"I 'eard about 'er spanking, Mr. Malfoy. And 'ow you think I can believe a _Muggle_ got a power can 'elp the Dark Lord makes me think yer trying to take the piss."

"I assure you, I'd never 'take the piss' with you," Lucius informed her, his tone rife with his asperity. "And she was beaten because she deserved it. She got off much too lightly in my opinion. In everyone's opinion, probably. Nevertheless, it's up to the Dark Lord how she's dealt with, and, for now, she's to be left in our care. So, for you to wait on the Muggle, is, indirectly, a way that you can serve him." He could see in her eyes that Martha was trying to process this information, so he added, "You don't have to be polite to her."

Finally, Martha surprised Lucius when she said, "I'll stay, but I don't want no double salary. I want ya ta hire me daughter, Agnes."

Lucius considered this for a moment before asking, "Why?"

"I've been telling you and the missus fer years that I need some 'elp round 'ere. It's too big fer just me and the occasional 'ouse-elf. Agnes is a good girl, and she'll work 'ard. I want you to match my salary fer 'er."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen."

"Why isn't she at Hogwarts then?"

Martha sighed, clearly annoyed. "My 'usband and I don' think book learning's her…vocation."

Lucius pretended to mull this over a moment, and then said, "You mean she doesn't make good marks."

Martha's eyelids lowered to baleful slits. "No, she don't make good marks, _sir_. But she's more than capable of emptying rubbish bins and dusting and polishing furniture." She looked him up and down. "That's my final offer. Take it or leave it."

Lucius backed up and shrugged apathetically. "Bring her here Monday. We'll see how she works out."

Martha gave him a fake, rather rubbery smile and started to walk off.

"Martha," he called.

This time she stopped and turned for him.

" _You're_ responsible for her," he said vigorously. "You know that some of the Dark Lord's servants have special… _appetites_. Don't let your young daughter wander around unattended, or she's sure to get…snatched."

His conscious clear on that score, Lucius had returned to the sitting-room to tell his wife about their new employee. From then on he had a newfound respect for Martha. Uneducated, poor, and ugly she may be, but her intransigence went a long way with him.

Agnes turned out to be…not pretty really, but rather buxom and extremely well-proportioned. Agnes had lots of blondish-ginger hair that popped out of her buns like tight, coppery corkscrews. She was slim-waisted and bosomy, and her milky skin was freckled terribly over her upper cheeks and across the bridge of her slightly upturned nose. She had hazel eyes, one of which had a tendency to wander, that were set very close to together and immediately gave the impression of an airy space between her ears. Draco found the overall shape of face rather equestrian. Her teeth were incredibly crooked and she exposed them often - along with a great deal of her pink gums - with her easy smiles. So Agnes was definitely not pretty.

Draco remembered her from school. She was in Hufflepuff, and rumors floated around that she was easy. None of the boys actually claimed to have had sex with her, but some had said that, if paid a little attention, she'd do things. Things every teenaged male dreamed a girl might do, whether she was pretty or not; for she had be on her knees to do them, so it wasn't as if he'd have to see much of her face. Just the top of her head.

On the Love Potion Day, Draco realized afterwards, he had come quite close to seeing Jane naked again.

On her first evening at the manor, when the Dark Lord had ordered Father and Rowle to take off Jane's clothes, Draco had been sitting at a table directly across from Mother. He had kept his eyes down the entire time she was nude, until Cissa had conjured a wrapping for her and then informed him that Jane was completely covered. He hadn't been desperate to see her naked or anything, but he was a little curious. Draco had never seen a woman naked in real life, only in a few pictures that some of his housemates had nicked from their fathers. Jane didn't count as a woman, not by a long shot, but she was female, and she did have, in the vicinity of her torso, a little something or two. So if Mother hadn't been sitting right in front of him, he probably would have at least _peeked_.

But on the Love Potion Day, Draco had almost seen her naked once more.

The Dark Lord had come earlier than usual that day. As soon as they were in the Brewery, he'd brought out an Invisibility Cloak. He was about to throw it over Jane, but she had literally screamed for him to stop.

She backed quickly away from it, almost tripping over the leg of a table in the process, and said, sounding stricken, "Please, don' be's doing it!"

"Why ever not, Jane? It can't hurt you," the Dark Lord said, surprised and irritated by her reaction.

She crossed her arms over her chest and, her eyes round as cauldrons, said, "I's ent fancy showin' me bubbies."

"Your _bubbies_? What, pray tell, are bubbies?"

Jane's dark skin began to darken. Before she met Jane, Narcissa would never have thought that ethnic people could blush. But she would have thought wrong.

"Dumbledore's putting one on me's afore," she told him. "And then 'e's goin' red and turnin' 'round, like. 'E's telled me to take it off, but afore I's doin it, I's turnded round and see in a mirror sitted there that I's naked. See, all my stitches go inviserable, but not _me's_!"

The Dark Lord began to quietly, slowly pace, as he thought about what she said. Jane's hands began to tremble a bit, and Narcissa assumed she was worried that he might want to see it for himself. After all, he had no problem exposing her naked flesh on a prior occasion, so he might very well decide to do so again.

However, the Dark Lord didn't want to upset her. She'd been providing him with some extremely helpful snippets of information of late, and after the incident with the spider she'd proven as delicate as she had presented herself from the beginning. The magical spider's venom was a rare ingredient that was quite useful in many potions, so the introduction of it into her bloodstream had been innocuous. But the pain of its fangs penetrating her flesh, combined with the trauma of being tied up while it had scaled and bitten her, had subsequently prevented her from spying for five days afterward. He'd been quite annoyed by this, but had tried not to show this in her presence, instinctively knowing that fear of his wrath wouldn't go anywhere towards helping her achieve the calm frame of mind she needed to relax and slip away.

After a moment he halted and then threw the cloak over himself.

"Can you see me, Jane?" he asked.

Jane nodded. No one else could see him, so they watched her as she watched him, her head pivoting as he silently skirted the edges of the room. Then he took off the cloak, and her eyes were fixed on the corner where he swept off the watery covering. Next, he held his wand above his head and cast a thorough Disillusionment Charm on himself, and once more asked whether she could see him. She nodded, and then he wanted her to tell him how many fingers he was holding up. A small crease formed over the center of her uni-brow, and after a minute she decided to simply mimic his display. She held up all the fingers on one hand, and three on the other. Bellatrix released a sound, half amused and half exasperated, at Jane's inability to tot up eight fingers.

He cast the counter charm over himself and then wanted to know, "Did Dumbledore ever ask to you for a strand of your hair?"

She nodded.

"Did you ever see him mix it into a thick, brownish green potion?"

She nodded, and brought a small finger to rest in the cleft of her chin for a moment before she told him, "'E's calleded it the Rolypoly Juice.'

"Polyjuice potion," he amended. "Did you watch him drink it?"

"Nah. 'E ent bovverin'. Say 'e knowed ent do nuffink."

Everyone in the room understood that when Dumbledore had added a piece of her essence into the potion, the concoction hadn't frothed and fused, signaling that the potion had undergone the alteration required in order for the transformation to be completed.

"Did he ever ask you to drink some Polyjuice Potion?"

She nodded.

"And what happened?"

She leaned over the table she stood beside, bringing her elbow up to rest on the surface of it and cupping her chin in her hand. When she answered him, her voice, as it sometimes did, lost the high-pitched, plaintive tone she usually spoke with, and she seemed so grown-up in these rare moments.

Sounding bored and ancient, Jane heaved a stark sigh and absent-mindedly said, "Nuffink." She raised her narrow shoulders in a shrug of indifferent defeat. Puncuating each 'k' with a drawn out kiss, she said, "Nuffink never didded nuffink."

He was silent for a few minutes and simply raked his ruby eyes over the dirty-faced, fractious child that grew ever more intriguing to him. Everyone watched him quietly - the tall, albino snake, licking his thin, almost non-existent mouth, as he lingeringly watched his unwitting, cagey prey. Jane had taken up a small glass phial, and, crooning a quiet, breathy tune, was idly caressing it with her small middle finger, and then began maneuvering it to refract the sunlight and cast multi-hued reflections over the worn surface of the workbench. She seemed unaware of the Dark Lord's scrutiny.

 _Who is she_? The question came wholly formed in Cissa's mind and was then, before she'd quite consented to acknowledge the spectral query, completely gone.

"Did Dumbledore ever give you a love potion, Jane?"

Without waiting for her to answer, the Dark Lord joined her at the table and pulled a thin glass bottle from the depths of his black robes. He conjured two glasses and, uncorking the phial, poured an equal draught into each one.

Did he think having her swallow a double dose might be more effective than a mere single?

"Tell me what you smell." He offered her one of the glasses.

She brought the creamy liquid up and inhaled deeply. She shrugged. "Nuffink."

The Dark Lord brought the glass to his slits and took his own whiff. Bella and the Malfoys wondered what he smelled, but none had the courage to ask.

"What's it be smell to you?" Jane asked.

One side of his mouth flicked up and he said, "I smell magic and power and eternity."

He set the glass down beside its twin and began to whisper incantations over them. When he was finished he pushed one of them to Jane and told her to drink it.

She didn't immediately comply, though usually she drank everything they set before her without hesitating. "What's it?"

"Amorentia."

"Iffin it be worked on me, what's it doin'?"

"If you can't smell anything, then I doubt it will work. But, if by some extraordinary reason this magic manages to ensnare you, you will spend…oh, I'd say, approximately the next twenty-four hours deeply infatuated with the dashing young Draco here." And, cackling wickedly, he swept his arm toward the young man, who was skulking far in the background.

Draco flushed a deep red, and moved his eyes to his feet, scared the Dark Lord might see his vexation, and be angered by it.

Jane's skin darkened again, as well.

"Drink it, my child," he told her.

But she didn't take up the glass and mind him. She backed away instead and muttered, "Please, don' be makin' me's do that."

"Jane." It was simply her name that he said. He was looking shocked and disbelieving that she meant to eschew her typical acquiescence, and his breath began to come faster.

She looked scared, but took another step away from him, the possible infatuation, and the potential humiliation.

" _Drink_. It." He was speaking through clenched teeth now. Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, and Bellatrix were all watching in silent relief that he was directing this look at the mudblood and not them.

A small tear slipped down her face and her aquatic, gibbous eyes met his in a useless petition for a leniency, a minute mercy. Through quivering lips she whispered, "Please."

Bella's eyes were backlit with a manic ecstasy at Jane's disobedience. For Bellatrix Lestrange hated Jane Wellington more with each passing day. She was an ugly, lame ignoramus, not to mention a _Muggle_ , but this wasn't what bothered Bella. Indeed, these abhorrent characteristics were not only trifling, but the only things that were saving the child from Bella's wrath. The apex of her world constantly had His eyes on Jane. He found her immunity to magic captivating, and He was finding her uses as his private spy more and more helpful as Jane's time in His service progressed. Bella wasn't looked at, sought after, made useful to him, or praised. She was nothing to Him since Potter's escape, and she was incubating her thoughts and feelings for Jane. A good portion of Bella's days were spent sifting through the girl's inner and outer being, her mannerisms and what exactly she represented to magical peoples everywhere. Bella was sorting through it all, discarding the extraneous, condensing the pertinent, and distilling her ideas and her loathing for the girl that the Dark Lord often referred to as 'My dear.' She wanted to kill her, badly. Even though Jane's presence with them afforded Bella a daily propinquity to her Master that she couldn't have achieved on her own, not at this point, she had an overwhelming need to end Jane.

Bella's strong emotion toward Jane was no secret among the Malfoys. Lucius harbored a secret hope, and fear, that Bella might lose her temper one day and kill Jane in a psychotic rage. As it was possible that he and Cissa and Draco could be blamed for such an incident, he wasn't hoping for it too fondly. On the other hand, if the Dark Lord _didn't_ blame them, he would most likely kill Bella for her mistake, and then two of Lucius's banes would be synchronously eliminated with one fell curse. Lucius had lately considered mentioning to his master his "fears" of Bella's destructive sentiment, devoid of a tempering logic as it likely was, and suggesting her removal from his household as the most sensible recourse. But all of the easy intercourse he had been privy to in his youth had suffered a discouraging surcease since the evening his master discovered that Lucius had been careless with the book he'd been charged with safeguarding. Since then, every attempt on Lucius's part to take up a genial dialogue with him had been abruptly rebuffed with vicious insinuations and thwarting dismissals. Lucius was still trying to work out the safest method of broaching the subject as nothing he said to him, these days, seemed taken well or at face value.

"For the sake of your spying, I'm going to give you one more chance to obey me without any repercussions, my _dear_. But you must know that without absolute obedience I shall, spying aside, have to punish you." He held the glass out to her, but when she shook her head and took another step away from his demand and his threat, the Dark Lord pointed his wand at her. It was a visceral reaction, nothing more, and when he realized what he'd done he lowered it again, feeling rather foolish.

"Bella!"

"My Lord!" she exclaimed, bounding to him with an unrestrained show of gladness. She frequently dreamed of hurting Jane, and woke from them with a swollen labia and damp knickers.

Her eagerness was her undoing.

The Dark Lord, catching sight of her unchecked grin and her chest heaving with elated anticipation, immediately decided he needed someone with a better balance of their faculties.

He looked around the Brewery. Narcissa wasn't even an option. It would have to be either Lucius or Draco. Lucius, he knew, would be the most obvious choice, but the Dark Lord thought he should train up Draco to take a more active role in his duties as a Death Eater.

"Draco, come here."

Bella's entire countenance sagged with dashed happiness. "My Lord, please allow me to assist you," she exhorted.

"Quiet," he calmly warned her.

Her eyes now shining with repressed tears of anger and disappointment, Bella retreated to the window and turned her back on the scene in which she wouldn't be allowed to participate.

Draco, while he often hoped that Jane might drink a poison and die, or fall down a set of stairs and die, had no personal desire whatsoever to hurt a twelve year old girl.

He went to his master and then awaited further instructions.

The Dark Lord really didn't want to have to hurt her, but this insubordination couldn't pass without reprisal. It set the wrong sort of tone for all future dealings. Jane needed to understand that, without total compliance, she was worthless.

He turned his eyes on young Malfoy and said, "Don't lose control. Now slap her."

Narcissa felt that she would be sick. She also turned away from the unfolding prospect, not wanting to watch her son beating a little girl - not even Jane, whom she frequently thought needed a beating.

As Draco advanced, Jane retreated.

"Please!"

Draco took careful aim and unleashed his palm at her. She somehow managed to dodge the blow by swiftly ducking. Draco hesitated.

"Lucius, get her from behind and hold her still for him," the Dark Lord commanded impatiently. There was much he needed to get done, and Jane's little rebellion was cutting into his tight schedule.

"My lord, perhaps I should just take care of this for you," Lucius offered. The idea of slapping Jane around didn't hold a shred of appeal for him, but the idea of his son doing it didn't sit well with him, either. He thought perhaps if the Dark Lord were to leave, he and his wife could persuade the child to drink it, without resorting to pugilism.

"Just hold her! Draco needs to learn how to inflict pain, since you've obviously failed to teach him this."

"Yes, my lord," he responded resignedly, almost meekly. The Dark Lord was perfectly right. He knew this, but as he watched each piece of innocence being chipped off his son, Lucius felt that he and his wife were both losing something ineffable.

As Lucius came toward her, Jane was looking wildly around, obviously on the hunt for a place to bolt. She made a dash for the door, but Lucius easily caught her. She swung back her heavy boot and planted a hefty wallop to his shin. And damn did it hurt! He raised his hand to issue a retaliatory slap but managed to check the impulse, knowing that she would be in plenty of pain soon enough.

"Please! Please don'!" she pleaded.

Lucius held firmly to each of her scrawny arms, turned her around and managed to push her closer into the room and closer to his son.

Lucius couldn't bear the look in Draco's eyes. He was trying to look steely and apathetic, but around the edges of his dissimulation his loathing and reluctance were still discernable.

As Draco took another swipe at her, Jane began to scream and thrash. Lucius was doing his best to keep her still for him, but Draco was bewildered as to where to direct his hands. He was scared to hit her too hard, for he couldn't forget what the Dark Lord had done to Macnair when he'd punched her. Most of his blows were falling far short of their mark.

Bella was utterly disgusted by her nephew's maladroit attempts to hit the crusty mudblood. She went and stood beside the Dark Lord, crossed her arms in a simulation of boredom, and released a derisive sigh of impatience.

The Dark Lord - noticing that Lestrange had collected her emotions, and growing more and more keen to have this done with - finally told Draco to stop.

Draco retreated from the frantic child so quickly it was almost as though he had Apparated himself to the opposite side of the room. Narcissa resisted the urge to go and comfort him, knowing her solicitations would be unwanted and only make him feel worse.

The Dark Lord looked at Bella and nodded.

As she headed for the place where Lucius was holding Jane, he cautioned her, "Don't lose your control, Bellatrix, or I'll turn my wand on you."

"Yes, My Lord," she answered without pausing.

Lucius saw that his sister-in-law was unable to conceal a little smile as she came toward them. Without qualm or hesitation, she roughly grabbed the flailing Jane by the back of her hair. "Plea-!"

SMACK!

SMACK!

SMACK!

"Stop!"

She stopped.

Jane was sobbing unrestrainedly, her lips pulled back in a grimace that exposed all the metal and wires connected to her teeth.

The Dark Lord came to them with the tumbler of love potion. "Will you drink it now?"

Though her cheeks were drenched in her tears, and snot was running into her open mouth, still she shook her head.

"Again, Lestrange."

SMACK!

SMACK!

SMACK!

"Stop! Drink it!"

She shook her head again.

The Dark Lord used his wand to draw a chair in the air. It materialized, rotated mid-air a few times, and landed gently on the floor.

"Set her in it."

Lucius and Bella managed to get the struggling mudblood into it, as commanded, and the Dark Lord conjured some rope. It slithered carefully across the ground, wrapped itself gracefully around Jane's arms and legs, without capturing Lucius' and Bella's hands. Once she was bound he told them to hold her mouth open.

Why she was making such a fuss, Narcissa couldn't fathom. Of all the deadly brews she'd willingly consumed, of all the dark objects she'd almost lovingly fondled, why was the simple love potion like poison to her?

Bella and Lucius together succeeded in prying apart her jaws and the Dark Lord poured most of the Amorentia into her little maw. Some of the viscous, pearly liquid ran down her cheeks and chin as she cried and sputtered.

After a moment, seeming to realize it was all over, Jane went limp.

"Can I's go to the loo?" she asked.

"In a moment." Instead of untying her, the Dark Lord returned to the workbench where the second glass patiently awaited. "Come here Draco."

Draco, thinking that their master wanted him to pour the second glass down her throat, and not possessing a single compunction about it, stepped to the Dark Lord's side.

"Drink this," he told him, brandishing the Amorentia at him.

Draco didn't blush, didn't blink, didn't breathe.

Narcissa came towards the table where they stood. "My lord?"

"I want to see if an incantation of Jane will work on someone else."

"Surely there are more suitable people you could test it with," she countered. Lucius feared for his wife and admired her bravery.

"Perhaps Lucius?" he asked. When two patches of pink appeared over her lactescent cheeks, he chuckled.

"Drink it, Draco," he commanded.

Draco, very slowly, reached for the glass, but once it was in his hand he simply held it. He eyes darted toward where Father was standing. Just as the Dark Lord raising his wand to the wayward Jane had been a gut response, so was Draco's looking to Father. It wasn't a rational reaction; hadn't been for a long time now. But Father had always represented the epitome of Draco's safekeeping, and in this moment, he couldn't help hoping that his once-almighty father could figure out some way to save him from the mortification this was going to bring.

Lucius saw Draco glance at him and decided that, like Narcissa, he should at least make some exertion toward helping his son avoid this embarrassment. "My lord," Lucius said, "Amorentia doesn't need any infusion of the child's essence in order to be activated like Polyjuice Potion. Surely this isn't a necessary experiment."

"Surely you aren't presuming to tell me what's necessary, Lucius," the Dark Lord said coldly. At the end of his allotted tolerance for the whole trial, he used his wand to give Malfoy a magical blow.

Lucius, caught off his guard, knocked into a table and had to grab at it to keep from falling to the floor. He groaned and pulled his hand up to his cheek. It felt quite hot and it was already pulsating painfully.

"Do you need some of the same, Draco?" the Dark Lord inquired.

"Can I's go to the loo now, please?" Jane called from the chair where she remained tied.

"In a minute," the Dark Lord told her.

Realizing there was nothing else to be done, Draco brought the Amorentia to his mouth and downed the syrupy, cloying philter.


	15. Draco Hearts Jane

**Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **A/N:** **Hey! Just want to write a quick note of thanks to the three fanfiction users who have been kind enough to leave me reviews! The Emerald Doe, FullMoonOnTheWater, and last, but certainly not least, Alice Helena. (And now you too, The Artful Beta ;) You guys rock my world when you bestow your sweet praises on my words. It's nice to know someone other than myself is in love with these characters. May the universe return the blessings you give tenfold. Thank you again.**

* * *

 **Draco Hearts Jane**

 **3 September, 1998**

The Amorentia smelt of a sweet perfume whose origins he couldn't quite pinpoint, but which evoked a faint pocket of warm memory in which he'd sat in his mother's lap as a very small boy and played with her hair; also the lavender soap that was used on the household linens; and another vague, rather musky scent that made him think of Pansy's soft breasts and Agnes's comely hips, slender waist, and bulging bustline; and after he'd finished drinking it Draco felt unclean. He wondered if any wizard in the history of magic had ever been stupid enough to knowingly swallow a glass of Amorentia. The room was suddenly hot and he felt stifled, as though he couldn't breathe. He could feel his cheeks flushing with the heat, and small drops of sweat broke out on his upper lip and his forehead; and he knew it was all in his head. He'd studied the effects of Amorentia as part of his sixth year curriculum, and it took about an hour for the potion to take root in his brain - unlike most potions, whose effects are instantaneous. But Draco was panicking. It was as though a death sentence had been placed on him and weighed heavily above, like a sharp, unstable pendulum was now swinging over his head; precarious and fatal and only a short matter of time before it fell.

The Dark Lord released Jane so she could go to the lavatory and while she was gone, he gave his parents and auntie some additional instructions.

"Draco isn't to receive an antidote under any circumstances. I want all three of you to observe his behavior until the effects wear off, and I expect some detailed notes."

He went on, "If, by some happy circumstance, the philter manages to enchant Jane, give her the antidote, and if that doesn't work then make notes for me on her reactions to it as well.

"Make sure your son doesn't do anything too disruptive towards her. You'll need to keep a close eye on both of them, especially if the Amorentia is working on her. If they have sex, I'll kill him. I have some…tentative plans for Jane involving her virgin's blood, which, as you all know, is a potent magic. If your son spills it prematurely, I doubt all three of you will manage to survive my wrath.

"Have I made my meaning plain enough for you, or should I be writing all of this down?"

"Your meaning is very clear, my lord," Narcissa said roughly. And then, brazenly, frantically she laughed, and looking her master in his bloody eyes, harshly said, "We won't allow our _son_ to have sex with the mudblood."

"We understand, my lord," Lucius said in a voice that was unusually docile, as though he needed to negate his wife's reckless statement. The pain and swelling on his cheek made it hard for him to speak.

"Anything you wish, My Lord," Bellatrix assured Him breathlessly.

His talk of Jane and her 'virgin's blood' was churning and bubbling so noisily inside Bella's head, she hardly knew what she was saying to him. What exactly did these 'tentative plans' entail? If He pricked the child, Bella would kill her; spy or no, come what may. She longed to ask Him, but knew she didn't dare even imply anything so sordid, in case that was furthest thing from his mind. It should be, Bella knew that. Before Jane was brought to serve him, something that abominable would never have occurred to her. But Jane's uncanny ability to spy, along with her perverse immunity to magic appeared to exempt her from all the regular rules that had long existed, governing the conduct of wizards and witches toward Muggles. Jane was changing everything.

However distasteful it might be for him to arrange for a child as juvenile as Jane to have sex with _anybody_ at her unripe age, Narcissa understood perfectly why he was thinking of it. A virgin's blood was very powerful magic, and Narcissa still had her own, kept sealed, preserved, and tucked safely away in her keeping should she ever choose to invoke its power. A witch's wedding-night blood was one of her greatest gifts to herself, the pain of it acting as a small balancing force, which was a measly remuneration, all in all. In countries where women were oppressed - in some places witches weren't allowed to have wands, receive training, and could be put to death if she were caught trying to practice magic - her husband could collect her blood and use it for himself. Many women said that the magnitude of this theft would cause whatever magic he chose to enhance with it to sour and turn on him in the end. Narcissa had no idea whether this was true, or just a random rumor spread by the indignant members of her sex, but she sincerely hoped with all of her heart that this was the case. The Dark Lord had either never heard of these rumors, which wouldn't be surprising as it wasn't something women discussed except among other females, or he didn't believe them.

Narcissa wished for her own sake that the Dark Lord's plans were labeled tentative because he was making them for a very distant future. Even were he to get Jane to consent to it – for surely he could see how counterproductive coercion would be - any time a twelve year girl had sex with someone older, it could only be rape. Of all the torture and all the killings that had now taken place under the roof of Malfoy Manor, adding the rape of a little girl would be a separate sort of odious to Cissa's sensibilities, and she hoped that Jane would either have sex sometime very far away from the present, or somewhere very far away from their family home. In addition to these wishes, Narcissa could only hope that, whatever his plans for Jane and her raping, they would involve neither her husband nor her son.

The Dark Lord left the Brewery, and went to get Jane from the lavatory so he could escort her back to her room.

After he'd gone Bella shortly quitted the room as well, and Draco sunk into a nearby chair. Hunching his back, he buried his face in his hands.

"It's only for a day, Draco," his mother tried to console him as she closed the distance between them.

He didn't answer, just shook his head mutely.

Lucius strode carefully closer to him as well, feeling weak and undone, but wanting to make up for his own shortcomings as a father and a wizard, by offering his son some much-needed comfort. "You know that your mother and I, and even Bella, will never tell anyone about this. No one will ever know, Draco."

"I will," he muttered through his hands.

"I can Obliviate your memory afterward," his mother offered.

They all laughed a bit at her proposal, finding it funny because of her unmistakable sincerity.

But the humorous interlude was brief as Draco's mind returned immediately to the magic that was even now being digested into his bloodstream. "You have to keep me away from her," he beseeched them through gritted teeth.

"We will," Lucius said firmly. "You heard the Dark Lord. He'll kill us if anything untoward happens."

Draco just sat there taking deep breaths, trying not to burst into tears.

"Couldn't you just tie me up and lock me in a closet for the next twenty-four hours?" he asked desperately.

"We would. You know that we would, son," Cissa said, "but he told us that we have to observe you."

"Why is he doing this to me?" Draco cried in a voice aquiver with dread.

Lucius and Narcissa looked at one another over his head, but neither knew what to say. They knew why he was doing this to them. He hated them. But this knowing was too painful and frightening to think, let alone to say out loud, and it wasn't likely to offer Draco comfort.

Narcissa gently rested one of her pale hands across his shoulder. "It won't last forever dear. By this time tomorrow it will all be over, and none of us will ever mention it again."

Draco, still leaning over his lap, thrust his long hands into his silky, silvery hair and rubbed them over his skull a few times, then brought them back down to rub over his face again. He, like Lucius and Narcissa, rarely indulged in these physical expressions of anxiety, especially since it was a dangerous habit to get into these days. But, as it was just his parents to see, he let down his guard and allowed them access to the manifestations of his distress. At least he wasn't blubbering like a baby, which he felt on the threshold of doing at any moment.

He stood up and headed toward the door of the Brewery.

"Where are you going?" Lucius asked.

"I need to feed Vega," he told them on his way out.

"One of us can do it," Lucius called after him. But Draco didn't stop, and when he was gone Narcissa, restraining Lucius who'd made to follow his son, said, "Just let him be, Lucius."

Draco headed to his room under the pretext of taking care of his gorgeous eagle owl, Vega, and he _was_ planning to feed him, but mostly he wanted a moment to himself. He headed up the wide, carpeted staircase and practically sprinted to his room.

Once there, Draco leaned against his bedroom door for a moment and caught his breath.

His room was spacious, yet it was packed so tightly with bric-a-brac as to make it seem quite cramped. He didn't like throwing anything away even after he'd outgrown it, or just lost interest in it. To his left two of the walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. They were thick, sturdy shelves built into the walls and made of a glossy teak. Every available inch was stacked up with scrolls, some antique ornaments that he'd inherited, miniature model broomsticks and action figurines, books (there were novels, old comic book collections, and he also kept all of his old schoolbooks), records for his gramophone, numerous boxes that were filled to the brim with pressed flowers, leaves, and jars of roots all leftover from the years he'd created his botany collections - and plenty of other disparate paraphernalia. He also had two desks, one for his summer studies and one for his extracurricular interests. The latter was littered with small model lunascopes, astronomy charts, and another box of botanical samples. He'd been immersed in these things during his fifteenth summer, before his dad was sent to prison, and since then he hadn't been able to conjure any renewed zeal for them, but neither could he discard them. Somehow disposing of these unused remnants would be tantamount to acknowledging, fully, that his childhood had ended too abruptly. And that wasn't something he was ready to do.

He had a small mahogany breakfast table in one corner beside the window which he seldom used, and in front of his large fireplace were two overstuffed, behemoth armchairs which he sat in almost every day. His four-poster bed was large and each post was carved with intertwined serpents running up and down their lengths. His bed hangings were an insulating brocade of a deep sea blue, embroidered with emerald snakes and broad-leafed vines. Draco had asked his parents if he could change the colors of his walls a couple of years ago and he'd chosen evergreen. Although his windows were large, he liked to keep the curtains drawn at least half-way, if not more, and even on bright summer days his room was cast in heavy shadows; this created the affect of a murky forest, as though a green light filtered down through a heavy canopy of deciduous leaves. He, like his ancestors, preferred this dim ambiance and he never felt as home in bright lights as he did in the dark.

His mum complained, excessively in his opinion, about the cluttered state of his bedroom, and every time he returned home for a school holiday he expected her to have cleared out all of his "junk" in his absence. But she never had; she respected his space and his wishes.

Draco didn't know why he was still keeping all the balls of strings he used to make cat's cradles and kites from when he was seven and eight years old. He just knew that when he considered chucking them in the rubbish bin, it made him feel really sad, like he'd be throwing out his memories of his wacky aunt. His eccentric Auntie Zipporah had taught him how to weave the threads into complex skeins and it had seemed so magical to him then. He'd loved those bright balls of rough twine and soft cashmere when he was little, and spent hours playing with them. He thought they'd somehow imprinted on his soul and vice versa. All of his possessions seemed as much a part of him as his long face, his white, spindly fingers, and his family pride.

He took a bleak solace from his room and his possessions as he went to Vega's cage and started refilling his food dish. He spoke to him softly when he went to his bathroom and got him some fresh water from the cold tap. Draco fed him some expensive, imported owl treats and gently stroked his soft brindled plumage.

Suddenly, feeling too tired to remain upright, he went to sit on his bed, and for some reason he started thinking about Pansy.

He pictured her puggy face and her cute figure. She'd been in most of his classes their entire time at Hogwarts together. But she hadn't made it into Advanced Potions. Pansy wasn't as dumb as Vince or Greg - she was never as far behind as either of them - but she often needed a few moments to cotton-on. That was when his interest in her had really begun to wane. He couldn't respect anyone who couldn't keep up with him academically. Greg and Vince thought he was foolish for breaking up with her, but they hadn't made it into many of the more sophisticated classes either. Pansy had seemed so ideal to those mongoloids, because she was not only a pure-blood with a nice body, but she also mimicked everything that Draco said, even the nonsensical things he'd said when he was goofing off and being facetious. A lot of the time she couldn't tell when he was serious or joking, so she just repeated everything, to be safe. At first he'd liked it, liked her, but after a while it'd gotten really, really boring.

Draco knew that Jane's deformity and her general ugliness was probably what bothered Mother the most, and that for Father it was probably the fact that she wasn't even a witch. Out of everything that was repugnant about Jane, the vacuity of her abnormally large eyes and abnormally small mind were what bothered Draco most. And forget about dialogue. Vega was more communicative than her. She was just so fucking _dumb_. And now he was going to spend the rest of the day, and most likely part of tomorrow, obsessed with her.

Love potions were a nasty joke in the Slytherin common room. Many boys talked about them like they were these really slick aphrodisiacs, which could instantly part a pretty girl's legs. Draco couldn't believe he was about to lose his mind over an ugly mudblood.

He went to the lavatory and checked his eyes in the mirror. His pupils were beginning to spread. He started taking deep breaths to try and steady his nerves but wound up so dizzy he had to sit down on the broad ledge of his enormous bath.

Fifteen minutes: that's how long Draco could feel the obsession setting in, yet remained aware enough of himself and his surroundings to realize that none of it was real. The magical illusion transposed his consciousness like a waking nightmare. He felt like there were two discordant notes playing inside of his mind, trying to harmonize with each other and failing miserably. It was excruciating.

And then it was gone. Over. His identity, his parents and his heritage, his aversion to Plain Lame Jane, his distaste of her unhygienic approach to…well everything, her barren, empty eyes; everything that made him Draco Malfoy, and every reason that made her as repulsive to him as pus and phlegm, faded, blurred, and eventually disappeared.

He had to find her! Jane, Jane, Jane Wellington. Jane. Wellington. What a brilliant, unique name she had! But would she understand how much he needed her? He had to let her know somehow, anyhow that he loved her! Merlin's beard but she was desirable!

Where was she? Oh yes, she was with what's-his-name, Voldemort.

Suddenly the words 'virgin's blood' came back to him and Draco felt enraged. He couldn't _touch_ her! Draco would die if Lord Crazyface touched his gorgeous nymphet. She was so above him, above everyone.

Draco pictured her on a pedestal, looking down on him and smiling. It wasn't high enough, so his imagination had to raise her plinth to cloudy heights, and it planted some red, blooming rose bushes around the foundations of her lofty perch.

Roses were a good start, but what Jane really needed was diamonds. And gold. He had plenty of gold in the family vault. But would it be enough for her? Well, the world's tallest mountain of galleons wouldn't begin to encompass her worth, but the large mound of it in the Malfoys' vault at Gringotts would have to be a start. With the quickness of his immediate purpose, Draco went to his hefty wardrobe and rifled through the drawers at the base of it, until he found an antique jewelry box. From it, he produced his great-great-grandmother's sapphire and diamond studded bracelet. His parents had given it to him on his birthday a couple of months ago, and instructed him to bestow it on his future wife, on their fifth year anniversary. Who could have foreseen then that he would have found the next Mrs. Malfoy in such a short amount of time? Not him. But really, when Draco tried to think about it objectively, this was kismet. The love of his life had been hiding in plain sight all along! And the stars and all the forces of a benevolent universe had conspired to bring him his Aphrodite at an early date, to save him the agony of searching for her!

Draco left his room at a chirpy dash, and covered the distance to Jane's room in a matter of moments. Without knocking, he burst into the room and rapidly, but never fast enough, he closed the distance between himself and his resplendent sweetheart.

He fell to one knee, and offering up the expensive heirloom, he blurted, "Will you marry me, Jane?"

His darling bride crossed her arms, blushed profusely, and didn't end his anguish by accepting his feeble attempt to bribe her with precious gems. She was too good for such earthly materialistic artifices and her refusal of the bracelet only enhanced her appeal to Draco.

The snake burst into cavalier peals of evil-laced glee.

And, in words that would haunt him for weeks afterward, Draco turned to Lord Would-be-Usurper and said, "You can't have her! Jane and I are meant to be together!"

But this simply set the maniac into further patents of dissonant humor.

Draco reached for his wand, completely oblivious in his muddled frame of mind to the fact that he would never be a match for the Dark Lord, even on his own best day, and his master's worst. When he remembered that Potter had stolen his wand, months ago at this point, he balled his fist, pulled his arm back, and made ready to smash the arrogance right off of that disgusting creature, who was threatening, perhaps seducing, his _raison d' etre_.

Thankfully - and later he would assign this auspicious intervention to some anonymous beneficent deity – Mother and Father appeared in the doorway of Jane's room, and with a millisecond assessment of the situation, Mother used her wand to freeze him mid-swing, and pull him away from the lethal person he'd been on the point of assaulting. She took him to the sitting-room and set him on the sofa. He was indignant about this betrayal, and from his own mother no less! And he issued a steady barrage of profanities at both of his parents, the entire way.

Draco, who was an extrovert by nature, kept up a continuous stream of verbal threats and impassioned pleas for his release. "You'd better pay homage to the deities of our ancestors, that I haven't got a wand at this point _Mother_. Because if I had one, I'd curse you into your grave this second, for keeping me away from the perfection of my future bride, woman!" he told her savagely. "What if he's having sex with her? What if he's hurting her, Mother? I have to go to her, please!" He struggled against his invisible bonds, desperate to see his little Jane again. "Please! Mother, she needs me! We're going to be so happy her together! You'll let her call you mother, won't you? Father, you too! You two have to make her feel like a part of the family, or I'll never speak to you again. Where is she?" He gave an extra hard wriggle and fell over onto his side. "Let me go, _damn you_! I need her! Jane! Jane!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

This was what drove Draco to the sadistic heights of cruelty that followed in the next week. If he'd just been able to keep his mouth closed, the disgrace wouldn't have been so glaring, so complete, once the Amorentia had finally cleared his system. But every disgusting thought that came into his jumbled head, spewed from his mouth like some feculent font.

Lucius and Narcissa were trying to maintain their composure. Narcissa almost wanted to laugh, but only to keep herself from crying. Lucius was so angry at the disrespectful way Draco was speaking to his mother that it was all he could do from using Cissa's wand to try and knock some sense into him. He had to keep telling himself, over and over like a mantra, that it was the Amorentia steering, not Draco.

When Mother finally relinquished him from the spells that were binding him, keeping Draco safely away from the all-powerful man they called Master, he was positively livid. She hadn't done this until Jane was done being debriefed by the Dark Lord a little while later, and had rejoined them in the sitting-room. His fury had only lasted about five seconds though; for once his petite goddess was within his sight, all he could focus on was her glorious presence, whereas, moments before, all he could concentrate on was the torment of her absence.

She wanted to go outside for her daily dose of fresh air and 'esersize'. Damn, her mispronunciation of words that were more than two syllables was absolutely endearing! How had he failed to realize, all this time, how precious and superb she was?

As they were taking her outside so she could make the flowers and the clear blue skies weep with jealousy with the exquisiteness of her person, Draco admired the way she took the stairs. In times past, before he'd seen the despicable error of his ways, Draco hadn't understood how absolutely adorable his Jane was, when she clambered and descended the staircases of their immense manor. Because of her quirky and, well, he had to face it, _exceptional_ formation, when Jane needed to go up a stairway, she had to pull her whole left leg up every step, and always bring the ingenious plastic one up behind it. And when she was on her way down, as she was now, she needed to employ an oppositional method for her descent. She lowered the artificial leg first, and only once it was planted firmly on the lower step could she then bring the complete extremity to rest beside it. And so on and so forth. It was like an elegant little dance, he realized. And he told her so.

"It's so cute the way you go up and down the stairs, Jane. I'm sorry that I didn't notice or tell you how elegant and graceful you are before now. I'm sorry for the times I wasn't as sweet to you as I should have been. I said loads of rubbish things to you that I never should have said," he told her, in an indefatigable rush. He needed her to understand how much he loved her, how far he would go to make her his. "I never wanted to say any of that stuff to you, you know. Mother and Father told me to do it. They _made_ me, actually. Mother threatened to curse me if I wasn't rude to you," he improvised swiftly. Narcissa, who was only a few feet away, couldn't prevent herself from huffing in disgust. "You forgive me don't you?" He grabbed at her arm in his desperation and sincerity. But, looking a bit embarrassed, and inexplicably startled, she pulled away from him and turned her superlative eyes to Mother, for some reason. "Please, Jane! You _have_ to forgive me for all that rubbish I said to you before! I didn't understand before how good and perfect you are! Truly! You know that don't you, Jane?"

She wasn't responding properly. He would kill himself if he couldn't make her understand how important and perfect she was to him!

He lithely put himself a few paces down the steps, and planted himself firmly in front of her. She couldn't keep going down these treacherous stairs until he was sure she knew how adamantly he adored and needed her!

Draco made a calculated swipe and managed to grip her wrists in his hands. How complete and validated he felt with her skin next to his. It was the pinnacle of ecstasies and he groaned with the unparalleled pleasure of it. But she was trying to free herself from his grip every second.

"Jane, you and I are meant to be with each other! You see that, don't you? Don't you?!"

Why wasn't she saying anything to him? She just kept getting redder and redder and wouldn't confirm the declarations of his intentions and desires to make her his. She finally managed to get her arms free from his clutch.

If he took a knife, and slit his wrists in front of her, would she then be able to see how much she meant to him? He didn't see this as too dramatic in the least, but rather as a perfect climax to display his feelings for her. She wouldn't be able to help seeing that, in the end.

"If I bleed myself for you Jane, then will you see how ardently I love and admire you? Jane, you're perfect to me. If I were to look up the word 'perfect' in the dictionary, there, I'd find a picture of your dazzling likeness. But no paltry photograph of your effulgent face will ever be sufficient to accurately replicate the precision of your grace and your excellent form."

"Alright, Draco," Father interrupted. "She understands how much you love her. Now let's take her outside for some …' _esercize_ '."

Draco didn't like the mocking way Father imitated Jane's idiosyncratic way of saying 'exercise'. Lucius made it sound like something silly or pathetic when, in fact, it was all a part of her indefinable allure. Jane was so above books and intellect. She understood things, transcendent things, which neither he nor his parents could ever grasp with their flawed, materialistic natures. It was simply a mark of Lucius's flawed human nature that he wasn't capable of seeing this as clearly as Draco could.

There was this saying that people used went they wanted to describe something as false or illusionary: "It's all hinkypunk lights and Amorentia fumes." But Draco felt as though the potion he had drunk earlier that afternoon had clarified him, swept out all the cobwebs from the corners of his mind. The Amorentia was allowing him to see Jane for the succulent seraphim that she truly was; she was his glowing, piquant paramour.

He kept reaching out to try and touch her again, and she kept trying to retreat up the staircase backward. Jane finally tripped and landed on the edge of a step. She gasped. Father and Mother laughed like hyenas. (Later, Draco would realize that their unusually vehement outburst precipitated from everything that was happening to him, over which they were infuriated and horrified by, but couldn't control. They really wanted Jane to suffer, but couldn't cause her to with magic, physical abuse, or any other tangible means, so all they could do was laugh at the injuries she sustained due to her own clumsiness, point out her ignorance and stupidity to her as often as they could, and congratulate themselves on not being as pathetic as her.)

"You two are so mean!" he shouted at them.

And Draco helped her up. "Are you okay, Jane? Are you hurt too badly? Do you need to sit down, love? Would you like me to get you some of your medisinine?"

She gave him a disconcerted look, rubbed her bottom a bit, shook her head, extracted herself from the arm he still had draped around her, and preceded down the stairs.

Once they'd reached the Nook, Mother and Father settled down at the iron table - Lucius to read and Cissa to peel some hupplekink stalks, and Jane sat down beside them. She took one of the oranges from the fruit bowl that Martha placed there for them every afternoon, and she began to remove the tough outer husk.

"Would you like me to do that for you Jane?"

He'd pulled a chair up to sit closely beside her and couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Ent you's gonna ride your broom today?" she asked, pulling back the fruit he was trying to take from her so he could assist her with it.

Sensing an opportunity to have his delectable lover all to himself, he asked, "Why don't you and I go for a ride on it?"

She shook her head, not looking at him.

"Why not?"

"I-I ent like being 'igh like that," she confessed softly.

"I won't go very high. There's this beautiful meadow a couple miles out. You'd love it there, Jane. There are all these gorgeous wildflowers, not that they even compare to you, dear," he said. "Please let me show you."

She shook her head, and then she tilted her head up and met his eyes, just for a moment.

That was when Draco noticed the color of her eyes for the first time. It took his breath away.

"Mother! Father! Look at her eyes! Did you see that?" he exclaimed.

His parents mumbled no and didn't pay him any heed.

"Turn your head this way again," he commanded.

She didn't comply, so he gently took her by the chin and lifted her head up. He saw it again. Jane didn't pull herself from his grasp this time, but kept her eyes on him as he studied them. When he reached out and took off her glasses, she just sat there still as a stone and allowed him to examine her amazing irises.

The high afternoon sun was angling across them, and where the light shone directly on them they were a delicious apple green. But on the side of her eyes that were cast in the shadows from the ridge of her eyebrows, they were teal crescents. The slivers in between the sun and the darkness were a brilliant aquamarine.

Narcissa looked up from her task and noticed the pair of them, her son holding Jane's face, their eyes locked.

"What are you doing to him, Poisson?" she asked furiously.

Lucius, startled by his wife's stern tone, looked up from his book.

"Mother, Father, come here," Draco said. "Look at Jane's eyes."

Narcissa, determined to put an end to the touching, set down the stalks she was in the process of unsheathing and came around the table.

She looked at Jane and meant to admonish her, but when she caught sight of the mudblood's eyes the words she was about to say stuck in her throat.

Narcissa leaned in for a closer look at them. Jane's eyes reminded Cissa of a tropical sea lapping gently over a white-sand beach.

Lucius, curious about what was going on with the cripple's eyes, came to see what the fuss was about. He leaned down as well, and studied her unique irises for a moment. Lucius thought that, framed by her long, thick, inky lashes, her eyes looked like rare priceless jewels.

"Your eyes are amazing, my love," Draco told her.

But his words made her blush again and she sat back from him, snatched her glasses from his hand, and put them back on her face.

"Aren't they beautiful, Mother?"

Narcissa went back to her seat and said, "They're sort of nice. I guess."

Draco snorted at this inadequate praise.

A few more minutes passed without incident, except that Draco kept trying to hold Jane's hand under the pretense of helping her peel her orange. In spite of Draco's 'assistance', she eventually managed to complete the undressing of her snack, and then slowly separated each citrus wedge and ate them, one by one. Draco wished he were her orange. He wanted to be inside of her mouth.

"Mrs. Malfoy," Jane addressed Narcissa respectfully.

Cissa silently looked up from her work.

"Will you's come wif me to the garden? I's be wanna go walk there."

Narcissa understood why Jane was asking her to accompany her on a walk, something she'd never done before. Jane was always allowed unfettered access to the woods surrounding the manor, and she never minded wandering around on her own. But today Jane had a suitor that she didn't wish to be alone with, so she needed Cissa's presence for her daily stroll.

"I'll come with you, Jane," Draco immediately offered. He stood up quickly, dragging the legs of his chair abrasively across the flagstones, so that they screeched stridently. He managed to grab her hand and tried to gently pull her up. But Jane's blue-green eyes were fixed gloomily on his mother.

Narcissa sighed. "Not today, Poisson. I think we should go inside soon. Why don't you use your chalks to draw a picture?"

Jane did as Cissa suggested and Draco followed her to the nearby place where she'd chosen to sketch. She carefully lowered herself to the pavement, with plenty of unsolicited help from Draco, and started selecting the colors she was in the mood to use. Draco stretched out beside her, nestled his head in his hand, and watched her pull each piece of chalk from the box and line them up uniformly, side by side.

Draco couldn't take his eyes off her the entire time she was working on her picture. He kept up a poetic monologue as he watched her. He compared her beauty to that found in nature, the moon, the night skies and the stars – "But none of it compares to your heavenly body" – he contrasted Jane to the portraits of his better looking female ancestors peppered throughout the manor – "They pale beside your transcendent beauty, my sweet Jane", and Lucius had released a derisive noise and quietly mumbled, " _Most_ people are pale beside her" – and Draco kept asking her to marry him. Other than an infrequent blush, she didn't respond to him through the majority of it.

She kept disarranging her skirt and shift to scratch at her thighs, and every time she did Draco was treated to some sumptuous glimpses of her tight knickers. He focused his eyes on the outlined mound of her sex, and fancied he could even see tendrils of her dark, delicate pubic hair. _Sacre bleu_! He could feel his own sex tightening and longed to press it against hers. Even her dark knobby knees, each overlaid with some mottled sepia scabs, were unbelievably appealing to him. He wanted to kiss each bony protrusion, and then he pictured himself creating salivating trails up the scintillating paths of her inner thighs. He longed to gorge himself on every delectable inch of Jane, sweet Jane. Every piece of her flesh that he rested his eyes on seemed like a veritable feast. Draco was dying to suck on each of her fingers, and clean off the chalky residue until his tongue had memorized the minute stippling of her tiny ten pads.

When the appetizing image of her legs was hindered by her clothing, he focused on her incomparable face. He memorized her mouth. He found himself intrigued by the anomalous arching shape of her full upper lip and noticed for the first time that, because there was no typical downward dip over the top of it, the skin between the bottom of her nose and the top of her lip was deficient of the centric indentation that most people posses. Draco wanted to trace his tongue over the upward curves of the tasty corners; he found the subtle sloping contours intoxicatingly enigmatic. The shape of her lips, combined with the rich, poinsettia coloring, brought to mind a glass of full-bodied, vintage wine. If only he could dip into the swampy well of her parted lips and drink her secret nectar.

"How's your face, love? Does it hurt where that cruel woman hit you?"

She didn't answer.

"Your cheek looks a little puffy." He reached out and softly tried to trace his finger down the smooth, mocha-colored skin of her face. She reached up and pushed his hand away from her.

"Where did you grow up?"

She ignored him.

"How many children would like?"

She swatted at a fly that was buzzing around her ear.

He watched Jane dig around her nose for a minute, remove a big, slimy bogey, examine it for a moment, and put it in her mouth. He sighed contentedly as he gazed at her rapturously, and thought to himself, _She is such a lady_!

"Do you have a middle name?"

She shook her head that time.

"Would you like to play a game with me when we go back upstairs?"

She looked at him. Nodded slightly.

He smiled at her. She looked away. Didn't return it.

"Do you want to play some noughts and crosses when you're done drawing?"

She shrugged.

"Your picture's very nice. I've always admired the way you draw and paint, sweetheart."

"Do you mind if I call you that?"

She didn't respond.

Wanting to gauge her reaction, Draco leaned up and deposited a trial kiss on her cheek.

THWACK!

Narcissa and Lucius were on their feet in a heartbeat and rushed to where their lovesick son sat next to the object of his undying affection.

"Don't you dare hit him, you filthy little scab!" Lucius yelled at her.

Jane was outraged. So was Draco, on her behalf.

"Don't speak to her that way, Father!" Draco shouted.

Jane had her own opinion to impart. "I's 'itting anybodies be tryin' to kiss on me! Don't care if they's chanted, or bein' not chanted!"

Draco had a perfect outline of Jane's small hand print on his cheek, which was swiftly reddening, and it contrasted sharply against his white skin.

Jane was attempting to scramble to her feet, her disconcertion making her more awkward than usual, and Draco grabbed her at her armpits and hoisted her upward.

"You stupid barbarian!" Narcissa was fuming. "If you lay hands on him again I'll thrash you with a paddling board! I don't care if you _do_ tell the Dark Lord on me!" Her hands were shaking.

"You's better be keepin' 'im 'way from me's!" Jane wailed. She was waving her arms at him frantically and kept trying to push him away from her side. "Stay way from me's!"

"If you do that, then I'll thrash _you_ , Mother! Jane and I were going to wait until supper to tell you this, but she's agreed to marry me," Draco lied, ignoring Jane's slim, impotent arms that were trying to maneuver him away, but which he just kept right on trying to hold onto.

"I's _twelve_ , you _arse_! I's ent marryinin' no one!"

Martha poked her head out the kitchen door, drawn to the commotion.

Lucius saw the inquisitive maid and drew his wife's attention to their unwelcome audience.

Narcissa raised her wand and cast a Confundus charm at Martha, and thought _Our dinner will be ruined now._

Martha, glassy-eyed, went back inside.

"We had better settle down now," Lucius cautioned his wife in a collected tone.

Lucius was so disgusted and confused by Jane. If he and Narcissa had a daughter, or indeed, even a young niece that was close to them, he might have felt more confident when they had to deal with the little girl. But her dirty, prepubescent presence unsettled him so systematically that he would often just retreat to the background and allow his wife to handle all the necessary interactions. Lucius knew how to handle almost anyone, the wealthy and elite, politicians and Ministers for Magic, sadistic Death Eaters and even their master, but he melted into a flaccid puddle of uncertainty in the face of an inarticulate, stinky twelve year old girl.

Narcissa took a few steps toward Jane, until she was almost in her face, but Jane didn't look in the least bit scared and didn't back away. Draco was squawking in the background, protective and ranting about his love for the disgusting cripple, but Narcissa was so fixed on Jane that she could hardly hear his diatribe.

"I meant what I said, mudblood," she told her calmly.

"So's did I," Jane returned just as softly, having to tilt her head back sharply to maintain eye contact with the sleek, blonde witch, whose own head was looming almost a whole foot above her black, woolly one. Draco's potion-induced invectives were still playing behind them, and Lucius was a few feet away from them. Jane and Narcissa faced one another in a contained bubble of mutual, tangible animosity. "You's better keep 'im way from me. I's ent toleraterd bein' kissed at by's anybody. Don' care 'ow pure 'is blood be. Iffin 'e's trying it again, I'll kick 'is baby-maker. So better keep 'im way from me."

Narcissa's cheeks were flushed with her fury and her hand was twitching uncontrollably as she weighed the satisfaction she would feel by unleashing her rage on the insolent, unflinching child before her, against the consequences she would suffer were she to gratify the impulse. She raked her eyes scornfully up and down Jane's contemptuous personage. "I'll beat you senseless, child. If the Dark Lord finds out that a muddy-blooded _speck_ like you was smacking a noble Malfoy such as Draco he won't care if you have to suffer some consequences. Kick him and you'll be sorry brat," she told her, deciding that she needed to tread carefully. "Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, but rest assured I'll make you sorry."

Jane's eyes changed. They lost their rocky resolve, melted to forlorn pools of contrition and supplication. " _Please_ , Mrs. Malfoy. I's ent wanting no fight wif you. But I's don' wanna be kissed at or touched. Please, makes 'im be stopped it," she pleaded.

A surge of something close to sympathy rose in Narcissa's breast. She rested her hand on Jane's shoulder and said, "Lucius and I can't make him stop, as that would be contrary to the Dark Lord's wishes. However," she added, seeing Jane's lower lip begin to tremble, "we won't let him harm you. You can be sure about that, Poisson. Just make sure, other than when you slip away later this evening, that you don't leave my sight.

"Let's go inside now," Cissa told the mudblood and her family.

Nobody protested. Cissa waved her wand across the stones around their feet and gathered the scattered chalk pieces, and returned them to their box.

Draco couldn't have cared less where they went, as long as he could be with his Jane.

Once they were situated back in the sitting room, Draco, much as it pained him to leave her side for a moment, hurried to his room and retrieved a modest stack of games which with to entice his dark beauty to play with him.

Jane took up the deck of playing cards and shuffled them a few times. She told him that they were going to play a game called "Go fish"; she explained the simple rules to him while she dealt each of them a small stack to hold and then arranged the remainder on the floor between them in a circular pattern: "the pond".

But Draco hadn't paid much attention to the rules. He'd been much too busy mentally admiring her. After a bit, when it was getting more and more obvious to Jane that Draco was much too enamored with her to be an engaged partner, she lost her enthusiasm for the game.

Despite his pleas for her to play with him, she wandered over to one of the smaller sofas and sat down next Narcissa, something she never did normally. If Jane had sat herself beside his mother on any other day, Cissa would have removed herself to another seat. But today she didn't. With her and Jane side-by-side, Draco didn't have room to sit next to Jane. He started to squash himself between them, but they'd both protested, so then he'd tried to perch on the armrest closest to Jane, but his mother had threatened him with her wand. Finally, he'd had to sit on the floor in front of his scrumptious honey.

Jane seemed quite miserable for the rest of the afternoon. At one point, Draco even tried following her to the lavatory, so Narcissa froze him with her wand. She got so fed up with his loud imprecations, and his lovelorn declarations for the wildchild who was hardly housebroken, that she also cast a silencing charm on him until Jane rejoined them ten minutes later.

When Jane adjourned to her room later, she came back in an uncharacteristically short amount of time and told them that she couldn't slip away. As she had looked at Draco while she related this, they were in no doubt that their son's sad condition was directly responsible for it. They could only hope that this unhappy development would prove as transient as the love potion.

That night Draco hadn't been able to sleep. His mother had locked the door after Jane had gone to bed, and she and Lucius decided to sleep with their own door open. However, after his parents had gone to bed, Draco had crept slowly down the hall and knocked softly on her door. He kept jiggling the door handle, hoping that it might unlock itself in deference to his wishes. The imaginary picture of his one true love kept popping up in the forefront of his mind's eye. He was exhausted, and eventually his head began pounding, but he couldn't drag himself off the floor and go to bed. Finally, he lost consciousness. And when he awoke, it was thankfully over.


	16. A Little Knowledge

**A/N:** Thanks again to Alice Helena for leaving a nice thoughtful review. I dedicate this 10,000+ chapter just for you. Hope you enjoy it! :)

 **Posted:** 12/11/15

 **Beta:** **the artful scribbler**

 **A Little Knowledge**

A little learning is a dangerous thing;  
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:  
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,  
and drinking largely sobers us again. – Alexander Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_

 **10** **th** **September** **,** **1998**

Lucius was in his study trying to delude himself into thinking that he was still busy and important. In reality he was drinking some expensive bourbon, thinking about the romance novel he'd just finished reading. It was the new Pure-blood Passion book that he had purchased his wife for a Christmas present. He hadn't meant to read it, had not even enjoyed it that much. But all of his other books were so heavy. They were either non-fiction books about magic, which depressed him, or they were about protagonists that he could not relate to anymore. Potent men of action, solving mysteries, overcoming the nefarious, inventing colossal, ground-breaking spells and potions, and these fictitious wizards were just as dampening to his spirits. All he could stomach these days was whether or not the beautiful Lavinia Dashwood would secure the love of her handsome, rich, purebred betrothed. Yes, she would. She _always_ would.

"Have you thought more about what I said to you two evenings ago?"

"Not really, Father," Lucius said absentmindedly.

"Well, you should," the portrait of Abraxas chided.

Lucius's study was an opulent testimony of longstanding luxury and refinement. The floors and shelves were made of sound, well-aged oak, and his sturdy, lavishly carved desk was an inherited masterpiece of craftsmanship, bequeathed to him by his maternal, heirless Uncle Thuby; out of all his male cousins who had coveted the precious thing, it had come to him. The wide, tall windows faced out onto the east side of the manor and gave him a gentle, twilit view of an evening, each season bringing a separate but equal pleasure. Lucius loved his study and all of the beautiful trappings it afforded him. The titanic desk, the spacious wingchairs, and every priceless antique were situated to his comfort around the splendid proportions of the room. The study was his own small sanctuary, much the way Cissa's was her dressing room, and he retreated to his personal mew when he needed to get away from the bustle of life, or occasionally his wife, or these days the sight of a mudblood in his manor.

Lucius opened the shallow drawer in the center of his desk and brought out his leather pipe pouch. He carefully untied the fastenings, withdrew his sleek, curved calabash, and began to carefully layer the fragrant moist tobacco into the bowl with a well-practiced hand.

"Why are you ignoring me, Lucius?" Abraxas asked.

Without a wand, he used a small silver flamfactum to light the pipe. He sucked at the bit vigorously a few times, making sure the embers were well caught, and cottony plumes of smoke engulfed his face until he fanned a dispersing hand through it.

"I am not ignoring you Father," he finally responded, relaxing into his cushy wingback. "I am smoking."

Abraxas, Rosamunde, all of the numerous Malfoys depicted in the moving, verbose portraits throughout the Manor - that they had all, at some point, been the masters and mistresses of - were insufferable nowadays. Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, and even to an extent Bellatrix were treated daily to a nonstop hail of criticisms from the tiresome paintings. It had begun when the Dark Lord decided to use Malfoy Manor as his headquarters, waned over the last year as they were magically and repeatedly silenced by Cissa and Bella and threatened with the attic, and then had revived afresh upon the appearance of the mudblood. They were only now getting manageable again, but only just. Lucius couldn't really blame his ancestors for their shock and disappointment at their descendants' failures. If he were in their positions Lucius knew he would behave the same way. Malfoys weren't renowned for their compassion.

"I am trying to advise you, son," Abraxas said quietly.

"I am trying to enjoy my pipe in peace, Father," Lucius returned.

"You used to listen to me," the portrait spoke softly.

Lucius sighed heavily and rubbed at his left temple. He was getting another headache.

"About money," his son uttered.

"About everything," Abraxas retorted.

"When I was fifteen," Lucius said, and sighed again.

If he still had his wand, the same wand that the portrait of his father was holding and which Lucius had lost, he would cast the _Silencio_ charm on him. However, he didn't have the Malfoy wand anymore, and he was contemplating bringing out the attic warning once more. It was _so_ trying. Why couldn't his father just leave him to smoke in peace?

But his father had never left him in peace. Not even when Lucius was grown, and married, and a father in turn. Abraxas Malfoy had always been there, advising, blustering, withholding his approval and occasionally access to the vault, and making Lucius miserable in some form or another. When he had finally given in to the Dragon Pox, Lucius had been quite terrified for some moments afterward that his father would reappear as a ghost and continue haunting him for the rest of his life. He had wanted to feel sad about his father's passing, had really tried to, but all he experienced was a blessed relief – like a considerable burden had dissolved in his chest. Though to the outward public Narcissa had seemed properly bereaved – wearing black dresses and affecting a sedate carriage – she had seemed more carefree in private, quicker to laugh and often boldly flirtatious, as though she were reveling in the freedom that she knew Lucius experienced. It was such a happy time for them both.

"I told you not to get involved with him," Abraxas said, unable to keep quiet even from a frame.

Lucius released a low, throaty chuckle which smacked of skepticism.

"I did," Abraxas insisted. "I told you when you were twenty-two that he was trouble."

"You said that the gods of our ancestors had brought him to abolish the Muggle blight, and that anybody who died in his service would be reserved a special place in the highest paradises off Mount Olympus," Lucius reminded him sardonically.

"I was _not_ talking about you and you know it, Lucius," Abraxas said, visibly stiffening at this unpleasant speech, while his grey sideburns and moustache waggled, doing a kind of wardance. Lucius had begun laughing again, and so the portrait had to speak up. "I never meant for you to join his ranks or risk your life, Lucius. Malfoys do not participate in battles and duels like foolhardy Gryffindors. We keep to the background, temporize, and hedge our bets. I was adamant all those years ago that lying low, and letting others do the dirty work, was the key to staying on top of the whole blasted war!"

"In case it has escaped your attention, _Father_ , the Dark Lord doesn't brook the sort of prevarication to which you are referring. When you try to sidestep _his_ blunt language, you find yourself on the wrong side of his wand and forced into a more forthright frame of mind than you have ever known you are capable of achieving." Toward the end of this, Lucius's voice had soured.

"But Lucius, you brought yourself to his attention," Abraxas spat, leaning forward in his gargantuan chair. "You sought an audience with him, let him brand you, and accepted a mask from him! _Why_ , eh? Why did you do all that when I advised you to try and stay off his path?"

 _Because I was an idealistic fool of a young man, whose home-life was stifling and unbearable_ , Lucius thought. And it was a post-teenage rebellion. There had been some fuss over his wanting to marry Narcissa, because of Andromeda, and Lucius had wanted – nay, _needed_ – some outlet for his frustration with the Pure-blood and mudblood clash. He'd convinced himself it was his duty to purge the world of magic of the encroaching scum. He wished now that he had listened to Abraxas, but it was no use crying over spilt potion.

Aloud he simply muttered, "Because I wanted to make a difference."

Lucius took a deep, satisfying drag from the pipe and released the sweet and acrid tendrils of smoke slowly through his nose, allowing the subtle aromas of the expensive tobacco-blend to linger in his nasal cavities.

"Lucius, you have to get them out of our house," Abraxas said.

Lucius ignored him.

"There's something off about that mudblood," he came again.

Lucius rolled his eyes and then shut them as he pulled gently at the warm mouthpiece of his pipe, feeding the embers the air they needed to remain active and aglow.

"She probably knows where Potter is," Abraxas said.

"Do you need to go the attic, Father?" Lucius intoned without much conviction. He was so tired. It was hard for him to strike the proper ring of authority this evening.

"She does not act right," Abraxas said, unable to drop it.

This had always been his father's way. He could never let anything go.

"She's a mudblood. She acts the way we assumed she would," Lucius replied without opening his eyes.

"Lucius, I'm telling you once and for all that that girl is an actress," said the portrait firmly.

"I'm sincerely hoping, for the sake of your position on the wall of my study, that this really will be the last time you tell me this," Lucius said resolutely, opening his eyes, sitting up, and fastening his cool grey irises on the painting hung between the large windows.

"Just think about it, Lucius," Abraxas counseled him delicately. "No one knows for sure where she comes from. Have you or Narcissa ever asked her where she comes from? No. She was helping Dumbledore from such a young age? _Dumbledore_? You believe that?"

"What does that even mean?"

"I know that you and I, for the most part, saw eye to eye about that man. He was stupid for allowing the Muggle-born pupils of Hogwarts an equal standing among the Pure-bloods. But there were always lines he would not cross, Lucius."

"I do not know what you're getting at."

"Do you mean to tell me that you actually believe a man like Dumbledore would take a brainless, immature, nine-year-old girl, and turn her into a tool to spy on You-Know-Who?"

Lucius closed his eyes again, trying to shut out the image of the condescending look in his father's eyes. It was the same look and patronizing tone he had used time and time again with him when he was alive. "Yes," he answered abruptly.

"Why?"

"Because she was useful to him," Lucius said in exasperation, as though he were trying to explain to a simpleton that one and one make two.

"That's something You-Know-Who would do. Not a wizard like Dumbledore!" Abraxas shouted. He seemed to sense from the basilisk look he was receiving from his son, that he might have gone too far, because he gathered his emotions and started again in a calmer tone. "Lucius, you have to know your enemies better than your friends. I knew Dumbledore better than you, and I'm telling you that using a dumb little girl to gather information on somebody like your master is not something he would have lowered himself to do."

"So, she's what? A diabolical genius?" Lucius asked dryly, and laughed again at the absurdity of it.

"I don't pretend to know what she is son," Abraxas told him carefully. "I just know…she is not what she seems."

"How do you know that? You always say that you can tell, but you never say how. So go on then, Father, enlighten me. What _exactly_ makes you think the stinky troglodyte is so…wily?" Lucius demanded, and raised his eyebrows to affect a look of mock interest.

Abraxas sighed heavily at the sarcastic expression his son was giving him. But he leaned forward a little and attempted to reason with him. "She says that she's twelve and she still plays with dolls. You do not think that extremely odd?"

Lucius scoffed. "No!"

"She is too gross!"

"Of course she is _gross_! She is a soulless animal, Father. A mudblood. She is the reason we do not want her kind polluting our world," he huffed. He was trying to give his father the benefit of the doubt for once, to humour him on the off chance that he could have a useful point. But as usual, Lucius was disappointed and regretted ever beginning.

"But it's so…exaggerated, Lucius. You don't think all of her belching and her nose-picking and her refusal to bathe is a bit too much?"

"Of course it's too much. Even should she only engage in one of those behaviors, let alone all three, it would always be too much!" Lucius said loudly, the pounding in his temple increasing its tempo as his heart rate elevated.

Lucius knew why his father's portrait was wasting his time with this ridiculous ruse. He just wanted attention. He still wanted Lucius to think he was omniscient, and it was pathetic.

"Have you or any of the other portraits in the manor seen her doing anything contrary to her usual behavior when she's by herself?"

Abraxas sighed, studied his son mutely, and then shook his head briefly.

Lucius got up and strode to the window.

The heat of summer was softening to a milder degree; some cooler breezes signaling the advent of winter. Even though he was not fond of winter, Lucius could feel his spirits flip-flopping with a weak pleasure at the thought of autumn. He really enjoyed the variegation the crisp air lent to the massive trees in the woods around the manor. The vibrant orange and yellow leaves were such a sight to behold from the view of his study.

Lucius had had a perfect life a couple of years ago, before Azkaban. Why had he not seen that then? Why had he been so desperate for more? He would give anything…

He had only wanted to make the world a better place. He wanted to know that his son, and all of the Malfoy descendants, would always be recognized as the superior wizards and witches that their blood line made them. He wanted all of England to understand how fine Draco was; the day Draco was born was one of the happiest moments of his life. He had proved such a welcome addition to the family, through every stage of his development, making them laugh with his ignorant questions and his guileless mischief. All the gold in the world was useless without a child to give it to - a piece of himself for a father to bring up and instruct. What would happen to Draco now? What had Lucius done?

And he thought of Narcissa. His beautiful, beautiful wife and her fortitude and her impeccable comportment; it didn't matter about Andromeda, or for that matter Bellatrix. Cissa was steady and upright. His fair goddess, his perfect potioneer, had always made him happy, always taken care of him as well as he had always taken care of her. She did not sit down and ask for help when she could be doing. He thought of her lovely pale hands preparing potion ingredients, never idle, though her patrimony gave her every right to unlimited leisure. He pictured her in a satin and lace nightdress at her dressing table; he had seen her there so many times, all he had to do was close his eyes and he could see her so vividly. A slim, shapely leg visible through the part in her dressing gown, her delicate blue-veined wrists, her poised laughter and a saucy gleam in her eyes as she related a bit of meaty gossip passed on from one her friends. Her slender fingers nimbly brushing, pinning, painting - employed like magic. She had given him everything that she could, always. She had faithfully and uncomplainingly nursed himself and their son through every illness, made a point of having their favorite dishes frequently on the table, and done dozens of small things to anticipate his wishes. And she did it all with such an easy, graceful way, never expecting thanks for all she did, nor even notice. He could not count the many times he had been on the point of leaving home, on his way to an important meeting with a minister or governor, to inveigle or, if needed, bribe and blackmail, and Cissa had stopped him, said, 'No, Lucius, that cravat doesn't go with that vest', or, 'Lucius, you shouldn't wear the fob watch with that set', and then she went to his jewelry cabinet and selected a more suitable piece for him. She was ever the maven, wanting him to look his best because Narcissa understood, better than anyone, how important appearances are and will always be.

Lucius thought of his small, perfect family and ignored the gabby portrait of the dead father he had spent so much of his life at odds with. He would move his paintings to the attic tomorrow. It would set an example to the others. It was hard enough to live his life, without his antecedents constantly browbeating him for the mess he'd made of it.

This was such a hard thing for him to do. Recognizing his failures as…well as an anything, was not something he had ever been taught to do by his proud parents. But there was some shift, a subtle change was happening around Lucius and he couldn't quite locate where it came from, how long it had been coming on, or even what it was exactly. The world was changing. He suspected the mudblood had something to do with it, or perhaps her presence here was just calling his attention to it. Lucius, at the seasoned age of forty-four was suddenly realizing that there might be different ways of looking at the world. As he remembered his childhood, his overbearing father and his silly, indecisive mother, and even his time at Hogwarts, he could feel the verve of his indoctrination surrounding him. But cutting sharply through, he kept thinking about those letters he had exchanged with Dumbledore. He still had the replies that Dumbledore had sent – his counter-arguments.

As much as Lucius loved his study, his crystal Venetian vases and paperweights, the sterling silver Swedish clock and bookends, the late and Great Uncle Thuban's desk, the calfskin footstools, and the hand-woven Turkish rug, as much as he cherished his home and all of his gold, he would give it all up in a spellflash second, if he could only know that his wife and son would be always safe and healthy. At this point, happiness seemed like too much to hope for.

 **~x~}{~x~**

A couple of days later found them in the Nook. Dusk was settling in and since Jane hadn't slipped away for long, and an afternoon downpour had prevented an earlier outing, she wanted to know if they could go outside for a bit. The Malfoys didn't have many opportunities to spend their evenings in the courtyard since she had come to live with them, though it was something they enjoyed frequently in the past. So they had readily agreed to accompany her.

It was a pleasant evening - the earlier shower lent the air a faint soupiness that felt refreshing rather than clammy. A sweet little nothing of a breeze was playing half-heartedly with Draco and Lucius's hair, coming in for a tease then pulling coyly back. The sun had dipped below the soggy cloudburst, but had yet to marry the horizon, and it was making an exalted spectacle of itself by throwing pink and soft purple shafts of light over the narrow fringe of sky in which it receded.

Jane was playing with the white peacocks; or rather she was terrorizing herself while she harassed them. She had named them, after Lucius coolly explained to her that they were merely meant to be plumage, not pets. So the larger one was now Bert and the smaller was Ernie. Such prosaic names, but they, the Malfoys and the birds, could not have cared less what she called them.

Jane had taken some seed from a dispenser and she was making these ridiculous cooing and chirping noises while she threw it at them. With her hiccupy gait, she would slowly sidle up to the feeding, distracted birds with an outstretched hand as though to stroke them, but as soon as she was positioned too closely to the untamed things they would start squawking and beating their wings while they charged aggressively at her. Then Jane would shuffle off in a clumsy retreat, half yelping, half laughing, obviously frightened and thrilled by them. Then when they'd gone back to pecking at the birdseed, she would start her exhilarating game all over. She was so undignified.

Draco was pretending to ignore Jane, but he was actually planning on throwing his glass of water on her the next time she came close enough to his chair. He had been doing these petty little things to her all week.

The morning after he'd been bewitched by the Amorentia, his mother had found him lying on the floor outside the spare room where Jane slept.

"Draco," she said softly, looking a bit scared that he might start yelling for his Jane at the top of his lungs again. "Why don't you go get in your bed for a while and take a lie-in?" she suggested, taking in his bloodshot eyes and sallow complexion.

Draco could still feel her presence pounding through him as sharply as the pain inside his head, but he had also been able to feel himself, and so he had quietly gone to his room, undressed to his pants and climbed into bed.

When he had woken up again, right before noon, the obsession was completely over. But the humiliation was just beginning. And despite a week's worth of cruel pranks - such as putting three spiders in her bed one night just before they locked her in the room, so that thirty minutes later she screamed so loud Mother and Father had gone rushing in to see who was trying to murder her – and mocking her mercilessly – like imitating her low-class accent and affecting her limp so accurately that Mother and Father had tears of unabashed mirth streaming down their faces, while Jane herself cried from anger and yelled that he was such a ' _meany_ ' – Draco had yet to get it all out his system - she needed to shed a lot more tears before he would - and he was plotting a lot of equally callous things to say and do to her over the next week.

If she'd just left him alone he would not have been so angry at her. But he was certain that she'd been quietly laughing up her sleeve at him the entire time, and she shouldn't have followed him around and asked him to play all of those games with her! Oh, he could see her now for the crafty little skunk that she was, and she had to pay.

The sound of distant male voices broke over the courtyard stones, echoing around the Nook, and then they began to grow louder.

The Malfoys all sat up in their seats, bristling at the unwelcome intrusion, and Jane, looking a bit confused and alarmed, went and sat at the table with them. Draco forgot to pour the water on her. He, like his parents, was nervous as five wizards rounded the corner of the conservatory and, calling out "Malfoys!" like they were the best of friends, headed toward the table where they were sitting.

The men were called Charles Quirke, Daniel Baddock, Malcolm Cauldwell, Thaddeus Banks, and Frederick Lipscombe. Each of them clutched a bottle of spirits in one hand and a broomstick in the other. They were underlings of the Dark Lord's, recruited more for numbers than skill, but with an elevated status due to their pure-blood lineage they were allowed to come and go as they pleased, unlike many of the Snatchers.

They were all dressed rather richly, or gaudily as the Malfoys saw it, with plenty of thick gold chains and rings, flashing dully in the fading sun, and brightly colored, unfashionably cut robes made from expensive fabrics. It was all afforded to them, no doubt, by the spoils of war; serving the Dark Lord had plenty of perks, and many a poor little nobody was making a small fortune from their lazy work, with or without the skull and snake insignia. Pure-bloods got the largest portion of the pickings, but there was plenty to go around, and most of the Snatchers that came to the manor were attired in similar flashy decadence.

They seemed steady on their feet as they casually sauntered into the nook, pulled up or conjured chairs, and joined the Malfoys at the table.

Lucius was looking angry, with a tincture of fear puckering his brow, though he was trying to disguise both of these emotions.

Malfoy blood was magically anchored to the very stones the house was built with and it was an old branch of magic commonly known as Homespells. It was as tight and as complex as the magic used to create the Fidelius Charm and for the past three centuries there had been a strenuous dome of wards and enchantments kept regularly invoked around the entire manor to keep out unwelcome persons. However, since his family home had become the Dark Lord's headquarters, these numerous spells had to be modified and relaxed, so that it was easier for a variety of wizards and witches, with dubious intentions and ambiguous heredities, to come and go in the course of their work for the Pureblood cause.

It wasn't uncommon for these types of people to wander around his manor and the surrounding grounds. Sinecurists of this sort came and went daily, reporting on assignments they'd completed and gathering new ones. These jobs mostly consisted of patrolling Diagon Alley, the Ministry, St. Mungo's, and sometimes they were sent to the homes of various citizens to issue warnings and threats - or dole out punishments to those who were repeat offenders. These mercenaries comprised a sort of ragtag police, and they were drunk on the power they wielded and thoroughly corrupt. They lazed around the lowest floor of the manor waiting for new assignments to come in, drinking Lucius's alcohol, helping themselves to the contents of his kitchen and larders, and often took up a spare room for a night, or more, and Lucius sorely wanted them to leave. Or at the very least pay him room and board.

Draco used to think that the young men who were his Slytherin housemates had used some nasty language when they talked about women and sex, but it was actually cleaner than Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover when contrasted with some of the things he'd heard the Dark Lord's servants saying around the manor. Draco had overheard groups of these men and their Snatcher counterparts bragging about how many muggles they'd robbed, raped, tortured, and killed. He was sickened by the things they'd done, the bald language they used to describe it, and also of how proud they seemed to be of the horrendous acts they had committed. Draco knew that as practitioners of magic, and as the supreme race of wizardkind, they were _meant_ to rule the Muggles, but as he was beginning to grasp what many of the Dark Lord's minions defined as 'dominate', he was starting to realize that he wanted no part in it.

Before Lucius bothered to greet them, he said, "We were just going inside," and he made to rise. This was a mistake and as soon as he said it he seemed to realize it.

The convivial smiles of the young men chilled. Their eyes narrowed malignantly and one of them, Charles, clapped one of his luridly bedecked hands over Lucius's shoulder and pulled him roughly down. "Now then, Lucius-" he began.

Malcolm, who was only nineteen and the youngest of the group, started laughing hard, already amused by what he could sense in the near future. Charles and Daniel, the leaders of the pack, looked at Malcolm and started laughing too. Then Thaddeus and Frederick, as though they'd been given permission, laughed as well.

It was stupid. They were stupid, and drunk and mad at the Malfoys for everything that they had been born with, and they were dangerous. Were all three of the Malfoys armed, the boisterous thugs wouldn't have been so pernicious, but, as it thus stood, they posed quite the threat.

Narcissa looked at the bottles they were holding, realized they came from their own private stores, and tried to assess how intoxicated they actually were; and she longed to retrieve her wand, but worried that doing so would precipitate an escalation that could otherwise be avoided.

"Now then, Lucius, my friend," Charles began again, an anaconda grin playing around his mouth. "How's it goin' without the wand, my friend?"

Malcolm, who it seemed was the mindless hanger-on of the group, laughed gratingly after everything that was said, often pulling one of his own heavily bejeweled hands up to cover his mouth as he did so. Draco thought he was perhaps doing this in an attempt to show off the extravagant rings on his hand, but made him seem like a skittish, ten-year-old girl.

Lucius wasn't really sure how to handle the situation. If he had a wand he would put the hoodlums in their places posthaste; but then, if he had enough status to have a wand, he would never have been in this impossible situation to begin with. Up until his capture and imprisonment Lucius had moved through life with all the conveniences of a pampered aristocrat, for if his name and blood-status couldn't cut through any bother or trouble, then his bloated vault at Gringotts could always be relied on to clear the way. Dealing with anything without the assistance of these handy lifelong tools was beyond him.

He knew he hadn't begun right. He should have sat a moment with them and engaged in some small talk - and _then_ made an offhand remark about it being Jane's bedtime. But how could he? They weren't important enough to be counted with the other Death Eaters, they were dressed like vulgar buffoons, and despite their supposed lineage they weren't even close to the elite society with whom he was accustomed to conversing. Sitting around with these morons to drink or be merry would feel exactly like inviting Martha to sit down and take tea with them. All of his propensities were revolting at the very idea. But he should have done it anyway, for the sake of self-preservation.

"Yeah," Daniel mimicked Charles. "'Ow you doin' without yer wand?"

"Very well," he said quietly, glancing at Narcissa's eyes and then the sleeve of her gown, where he knew her wand rested. He plastered a ceramic smile on his face and continued, "So kind of you to inquire. How's the vintage port? Is that the '56?"

Charles held his bottle up and examined it. Then he flung his arm around Lucius and said, "Nope. The '42."

Malcolm draped an arm over the back of Draco's chair and then Daniel placed his around Narcissa's. All three of the Malfoys pinkened at this last one, and Lucius went rigid as the last lout put his unworthy arm around his wife. Draco sorely wished to say something, but knew he should follow his father's lead.

At this awkward moment, Jane decided to get up and go to watch the fish in the fountain.

The five ruffians watched her departure from the table. Lucius couldn't help notice that both Malcolm and Frederick looked after her rather wistfully, the latter actually licking his lips with undisguised yearning.

Charles readjusted his eyes on Lucius. "How's takin' care of that freaky little bitch? We hear she don't like the baths."

They broke into another chorus of chimpanzee laughter. Lucius affected his own milder version of their laughter and so did Draco and Narcissa, but it sounded forced to their own ears and probably did to the others as well. Applying the word 'bitch' to _any_ female was lower than low in Lucius's opinion. The closest he'd ever come to doing so would have been for Bella, but he hadn't. These cretins using the word on the mudblood was crass, but Lucius found himself more upset by them using such foul language in his wife's presence.

Once the monkey noises had subsided, Lucius said, "Yes, she is quite the little beast."

Daniel wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and said, "Yeah, must be 'ard 'avin 'er stinkin' up yer big pretty 'ouse, Malfoy."

Malcolm, like a broken record, clapped his fat gorilla hand over his mouth in another girlish gesture, and tittered harshly again.

"Yes, it is," Lucius woodenly agreed again.

"It true she like to fart at the dinner table?" Charles asked, a wicked smirk shining out of his glassy, drunken eyes.

It was horrible enough to keep the slippery fish in their home, but to know that it was talked of and most definitely joked about by others was especially odious to the Malfoys. Lucius was trying to keep hold of his anger, hoping that, if he patiently waited while the dullards had their laughs at the expense of his family, then eventually they would get bored of it and leave.

"We 'ear you's gotta do all kinds of lil' experiments on 'er," Daniel said. "That true, too?"

"Yes. She's definitely the abominable little freak," Lucius told him. Getting an idea, which he hoped might encourage the lackeys to forget about his earlier _faux pas,_ he said, "She has proven immune to everything we've tried on her, in fact. The Dark Lord has ordered us to feed her countless, deadly poisons. Nothing works. You are more than welcome to try some curses on her if you would like, to see for yourselves."

"That right?" Thaddeus asked, and looked to Charles to see how he would react.

"It's true," Narcissa said, giving her husband a casually loaded look before she turned to Charles and continued. "Even the Cruciatus Curse has no effect on her."

Charles actually looked a bit interested by this suggestion, "Any one ever tried the Killing Curse on 'er?"

Narcissa and Lucius were appreciably alarmed by this question and Lucius rapidly told them, "No, no! The Dark Lord, to my knowledge, has not cast that _particular_ curse on her yet, and I ask you not to either. He would be most displeased by that I believe, and would surely punish any who did so without his express permission." Lucius was trying to draw their animosity away from the Malfoys and onto the Jane (who had the inviolable protection of their master) but now he was worried he might be digging his own grave. "I am simply suggesting you try casting some hexes and jinxes at her if you would like. Many of our acquaintances like to see it for themselves, you see, as it is such an oddity for anyone to be immune to magic."

"Narcissa," Lucius, said with a simulacrum of an easy smile, "May I see your wand, love? I will give them a small demonstration."

Narcissa hurriedly pulled out her wand and handed it to him, relieved that the onus of protection, if it came to that, would fall on her husband rather than herself.

Since Jane was at least ten feet away from the table where they sat, Lucius had to take careful aim as he cast a few spells at her. Knowing it would impress them more if the men knew which jinxes he was using, Lucius spoke the incantations aloud instead of doing it nonverbally as he would have done any other time. When the magic started pouring into her, Jane sat up and looked over to them.

Draco gave her a casual wave and a fake smile and all eight of them laughed, united against the frowsy muggle.

His plan was working. The inebriated thugs were starting to focus their sloppy gazes at Jane, and Lucius was just beginning to relax and congratulate himself on his cleverness when Draco, inadvertently, went and ruined it all.

Lucius knew it was an accident. Draco simply thought they might be interested in knowing about it, but it was badly taken when he told them, "The Dark Lord even brought an Orb of Thanatos for her to touch a few weeks ago."

They clearly didn't know what an Orb of Thanatos was, ignorant gits that they were. They didn't appreciate the boy saying that, because they thought he was trying to make them feel stupid.

If the Malfoys had a proper status, had wands even, then one of them, Charles probably, would have feigned an interest in what Draco said, and he would been open to receiving an education. But this, combined with the earlier rebuff, convinced them that the Malfoys were still putting on misplaced airs because of their wealth. When were the Malfoys going to stop acting like the bleeding snobs that they were? How low did they have to go, before they would come around to the realization that they _weren't_ better than everybody else?

"That so?" Charles asked, his eyes regaining an insidious gleam. "She touched one of them, eh?"

"Tell us somethin', Draco," Frederick chimed in, "she ever touched one of yer orbs?"

Draco's eyes rounded out with shock and horror. Did they know about the love potion?

Daniel, Frederick, and Malcolm burst into the rowdiest laughter yet. But Charles was quietly taking in the communicative expression on Draco's face.

"Now, now," Lucius said, his face the vibrant color of a tomato, "there's no need for such crude language in my wife's presence."

The Malfoys were rapidly losing their semblance of cool.

The undemanding position that these ruffians had been enjoying, combined with the nature of the work they did for their master, had spoiled them. These men may have begun with a little decency when they enlisted to straighten out the pecking order of the wizarding world, drawn in by the power and the uncomplicated accumulation of wealth, but they were now rotten to the core.

"We should be getting Jane to bed soon," Lucius cut in, over the rank sounds of their polluted laughter.

"You like puttin 'er to bed, Lucius?" asked Malcolm, causing an increase in their noisy glee.

"That's just about enough!" he said loudly as he stood, unable to ignore such disgusting allusions.

"Come along Cissa, Draco," he commanded.

His wife and son rose from their chairs.

Charles quickly pulled his wand out of his robe and cast a hex at Lucius.

Lucius wasn't as prepared for it as he should have been, distracted as he was by his fury at their nasty insinuations, but he still managed to deflect it with his own Protego spell.

He managed to disarm Malcolm and Frederick, while Draco was trying to wrest Daniel's wand away from him. But when he turned to take on Charles, Lucius saw that he had immobilized Narcissa, was standing behind her, using her as a shield, and he had his wand to her throat.

"Drop it," Charles commanded.

Behind him Lucius heard a deep voice, probably belonging to Thaddeus, shout, "Legrancum!" and then he heard Draco moan in pain and the distinct sound of a body hitting the paved stones.

Daniel laughed, and then said, "You bloody git! Took ya long enough to get 'im off me!"

Lucius had never felt so helpless in his life as he saw his wife's face; the spell had captured her countenance, and she had her lip curled in disgust. She didn't look scared, simply contemptuous.

Lucius heard another incantation and he lost consciousness.

 **~x~}{~x~**

Narcissa could not turn her head to her son or her husband, could not discover their injuries or fates in this nightmare falling over her family. They were handicapped without wands. She had always known it. But this moment was crashing it into her painfully and inclemently. Martha had gone home, Bella, even were she to appear, had no wand, Jane was as stupid and useless as the peacocks, and any other Death Eater who might come across this scene would be just as likely to join in with the torment as they would to offer them help, depending on how the mood struck them - except for Severus, but he was at Hogwarts now and usually only came for the Sunday meetings. They had not seen him for weeks. They were alone and helpless.

 _Morgana help us_! Narcissa sent a desperate orison to a numinous benefactress she normally lent little heed to.

Charles and his lackeys were delighted with the outcome of the brief skirmish. It was all over now. The Malfoys were subdued and at their mercy - of which they had none.

Charles stepped out from behind the blonde bitch, walked over to her blond bastard of a husband, and embedded a vicious kick into Lucius's stomach. He revived enough to moan. Then the young man leaned down and spat on his face.

"You still think your shit don't stink, donchya Lucius?" he asked, with voice brimming with hatred.

"Wha'dya reckon we should do with them?" Daniel asked joyfully, and then took a long drink from his bottle.

"Oi," Malcolm drew his companions' attention softly. They turned and looked at him. "This ent a good idea," he said, nervously looking at them, two on the ground and Mrs. Malfoy still standing like a white marble statue.

She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. Malcolm didn't mind hurting Muggles, he liked fucking the little ones. But Mrs. Malfoy was nothing like those scared, mindless animals that he loved to make cry. She was everything he'd been taught to believe was above him, out of his reach, and her face, frozen in disdain, just seemed to be confirming this belief.

Charles and Daniel might get ideas about bringing her down, but Malcolm didn't want to participate in that. He _liked_ women like her being so calm and ethereal. She was like an angel to him and he didn't want to tear off her wings, see her sobbing and begging; he could feel uncertainty setting into his mind, holding him back this time.

"Blimey, Mal! Wochu' talkin' about, eh?" Charles asked, his voice sounding a touch peevish.

"They's Death Eaters," Malcolm said urgently. "We ent. The Dark Lord might not like us makin' sport of 'em. They ent exactly the Muggle rubbish we usually play round wif, yeah?"

"Who cares!" Daniel shouted furiously. He didn't want to hear these sensible thoughts. He was getting too warmed up with the thought of teaching the Malfoys the lesson they so clearly needed. "They's nobodies now! They don't even get invited to the meetings anymore, what I 'ear."

"Yeah," Charles seconded. "They're so low they're mindin' Muggle filth!"

"Let's go," he urged them. "We got some good plans fer tonight. Let's just go and find some Muggles to get it on with."

Apparently Malcolm, who at first seemed like the dumbest of the lot, had a lot more common sense than his mates. "What if Lestrange gets another wand, eh? She's Mrs. Malfoy's _sister_ , and I ent wanna be on 'er dark side. I 'ear she's barmy."

"Then just go, you tetchy lil' rat. It ent like we can't erase their memories after we're done," Charles said harshly.

"Ya know that spell, do ya?" Malcolm asked sceptically.

"Course I know it," Charles told him calmly.

"I'm goin'," he told them. He was not as confident in the leader's skills as Charles seemed to be.

From the corner of her eye Narcissa saw Malcolm pick up a broom from the ground, mount it, and take off.

"I can't believe Mal's missin out on the fun," Daniel said, as he watched his colleague fly away. Now his voice was thick with doubt.

"Donchya be getting no ideas of following him now, Danny!" Charles commanded him. Then his demand somersaulting to an entreaty. "Ya hear?"

 _Please let him leave_ , Narcissa thought. _Just let them all leave_.

All was silent for a moment.

"Right then," Charles said. "You lot get them up."

Suddenly Lucius was brought into the side of her wobbly vision as Frederick and Daniel hoisted him into a seat. Blurrily she watched undulating lines moving around Lucius as Daniel cast ropes around her husband's arms and upper body. Then she heard them hauling Draco into the seat beside her husband.

It was an indescribable agony to hear everything, to see half-formed pieces in her periphery, and have no power to stop what was happening to them - or to even move her body.

Once Draco and Lucius were positioned and bound, Daniel and Charles cast counter spells at them so they could revive and be aware of what was happening.

"Release us this instant or I'll kill you," she heard her husband say in a breathy panting voice that wasn't as cold and hard as it would have been if he was not in so much pain.

The remaining four burst into shameless laughter.

"Pipe down now, Lucius," Daniel said. "It'll all be over quick 'nuff."

"Or not," Thaddeus added.

They just kept laughing and laughing. Narcissa didn't think she could stand much more of it.

When Charles came to her, put his arm around her, she thought she would be sick. She could actually feel hot, acrid bile rising and burning the back of her throat, but she was unable to swallow it down. Her eyes were watering as well, as she had no control of any of her faculties and couldn't even perform a simple blink to moisten them.

Charles ran his finger down her cheek, sliding it through the damp streak that glistened in the dusky light.

"Look at 'er," he said softly. "She were about to get 'exed and all she felt was scorn for us."

Daniel laughed again. He was the best looking of the rough bunch, with piercing blue eyes, bright black hair, and a straight nose and square jaw. Even though he was almost thirty, three years older than Charles, he was only the second-in-command of their motley gang.

Charles had a forceful, charismatic personality, and he was clever. He always had good ideas for getting better jobs with bigger pay-offs, and with his silver-tongue he could snake his way out of just about any sticky situation. So, for now, Freddy, Mal, Danny, and Tad all looked to him to negotiate their way through the murky waters of life in the Dark Lord's service, and he had steered them safely thus far. Of course, loyalties were in never-ending flux as the tides and undertows of power constantly churned and shifted, so the second he took a misstep, he could be sure one of his followers would get him in the back. There was no honor among thieves.

Charles wasn't in any hurry, and to demonstrate his comfort he brought the bottle of port to his mouth and took a few long swigs.

He put his wand to Narcissa's head, leaned in closer to her ear, and whispered a spell.

Cissa could feel her whole head and neck relaxing, though everything from the neck down remained immovable. She started to blink and swallow.

"Release me now, _pig_ , or me and mine will spend the rest of our lives making yours' unlivable."

"Shut your mouth, you cheeky little bitch!" Charles ground out roughly through his teeth. And then, soft again, "You think you're better than me, donchya?"

"You're not fit to lick my boots, scum," Narcissa told him calmly, coldly, boring her icy eyes into him. He was chilled by her glacial composure. He was used to panicky Muggle animals, and had never had the courage to assault a genuine lady before now - but he'd always wanted to fuck Narcissa.

With his arm still around her, Charles forced his bottle roughly into her mouth, bruising her lips and banging the glass against her teeth as he did so. Once he had the bottle firmly in her mouth he tilted it forcefully up, causing some of the fiery spirits to spill into her.

Narcissa tried to swallow it so she wouldn't choke, but she was so angry and disconcerted a small portion of it slipped into her windpipe and she began to splutter and cough.

"Let my mother go, you barbarians! I'll kill you if you touch her!" Draco called from his seat, and he pulsed and writhed, tried to struggle out of his bindings.

Lucius, who was having his own trouble staying conscious, said weakly, "You will be sorry for this."

Charles used his wand to give both the man and his boy some magical pain. Draco and Lucius screamed for a full minute, before Charles felt sufficiently mollified. Narcissa felt more hot tears run down her cheeks, but these had nothing to do with an inability to blink.

"Shut it! All three of you just shut it!" Charles was enraged. "That's what I can't stand about you lot, you arrogant bastards! You just never know when to say sorry. You walk round all the time with your noses in the air and it disgusts me! Well… Guess what? All your money and your big house and your fancy clothes and hoity-toity manners ent gonna save you now."

"Now then," and he turned back to Narcissa, "I wanna know what color your knickers are."

"Go to Hades," she told him. Her heart started pumping faster with a fear she tried not to show.

Lucius thought he might cry. He _couldn't_ cry; he was a Malfoy. But if he had to watch these men treat his wife like some sort of slattern he would die. Lucius was wavering between rage and a deep shame and grief. He couldn't even protect his family anymore.

"I bet they're lacy, Chuck!" Frederick called out. "Blimey, is that a Firebolt?" he asked, catching sight of Draco's broom. He weaved a serpentine path to the broomstick leaning against the wall and picked it up. Freddy was a total pedophile – boys or girls, either would do for him – and Narcissa's knickers held very little interest to him, as he knew there would be hair beneath them.

"Merlin's nuts, Freddy," Thaddeus called loudly, "you have dung for brains! Come 'ere and let's see what her knickers look like. I bet they got some silky ribbons on them."

Thaddeus, Frederick, and Daniel started making bets on what sort of undergarments Narcissa was wearing while Charles, his hazel eyes glued to his beautiful victim, began using his wand to slowly raise the costly fabrics of her silk gown and satin shift. He was trying to gage how far he would have to lift them before her stolid demeanor avalanched.

Narcissa was managing to keep up her pretense of cool indifference. But only until she felt the benign, teasing breeze swirling around her bare knees.

This was it. She was breaking, and her face crumpled. "Lucius," she sobbed.

"Oi!" Cissa heard Jane call.

The next thing everybody knew the little brat was in the center of the group.

"That's nuff, now," Jane said calmly. "You's gotta be goin' now."

Charles was so taken aback by the tiny urchin's tranquil order that he just gaped at her with his mouth hanging open like a codfish.

"Scuse me?" he asked, regaining his momentum. "Did you just _speak_ to me?"

The sun was halfway sunk beneath the horizon and the magical torches that were placed around the courtyard and trained to ignite themselves should any people be present were now lit up. The flickering flames were swaying and rocking over Jane's glasses and the metal over her teeth.

"You's gotta bein' gode now," she repeated.

Charles led the men in a round of hearty laughter. He dropped his wand from Narcissa skirts and they fell down to where they belonged, at her ankles once more.

For all her relief, Narcissa didn't know what would happen. She was glad that Jane was distracting them, and she was scared that the men, drunk on liquor and power, might hurt her – Frederick's salacious eyes fixed on Jane were not lost on Narcissa, even in her state of distress – and she couldn't see how any of this might have a satisfactory outcome. If they decided to attack Jane, the Dark Lord would probably kill everybody present, incapacitated or otherwise.

"I don' think you understand what's goin' on here, Mudblood," Charles told her, a mad little glint in his eyes. He walked closer to the little girl, leaned down a little and softly explained, "See, we've got the wands and the power 'ere, yeah. We're bigger than you, we're smarter than you, and I ent appreciatin' ya trying to tell me what I gotta do."

He gently but firmly pushed on her shoulder, and Jane was forced to take a step or two back.

"If you hurt her, the Dark Lord will kill us all," Narcissa cautioned him.

And then, quite mysteriously, Jane, in a soft, almost sing-song voice crooned, "Is baffy-waffy time Chuppywuppykin."

Lucius saw Charles eyes widen in terror and disbelief as he quickly moved away from Jane as though he'd been burned by her words. "What?" he softly spat.

Jane didn't repeat it. Instead she said, "You's be 'earin me, Chuck. Now get on your brooms and fly 'way. Or I's tellin' everyone what it meaned."

Charles looked thoroughly dazed, but then he made a raw sound and took a step toward her. He pulled back his hand as though to strike her. Thankfully he didn't. He seemed too disoriented and too distraught.

Daniel came toward them at this point and asked, "Oi, what's she goin' on about?"

Danny leaned down into Jane's face now and asked, "What you talkin' about, you uppity lil' cripple?"

And then, just as inexplicably, Jane looked at Daniel and opened her mouth and started talking to him in what sounded like a lilting foreign language. Lucius did not know what language it was, but it had a distinctly Oriental rhythm to it.

Danny also looked horrified by her cryptic speech. He took some steps away from Jane as though she'd just grown ten inch fangs and sprouted a gruesome pair of scaly wings.

"All of you's better goed now, or I's be sayin' all your secrets to each uvver," Jane said calmly.

Charles leaned down once more, and with a face permeating hatred he growled, "You better watch yer back, _bitch_!"

And then he went and retrieved his broom from where it was leaning against a chair.

"What's goin' on?" Thaddeus asked.

"We're leavin', Tad, Freddy, Danny!" Charles barked.

"Why?" Thaddeus whined. "It's just gettin' good."

"Now!" Charles yelled. He soared up about ten feet and then turned around and watched the rest of them. He had to make sure they would follow him. " _Now_!" he shouted again, sounding more than a little deranged.

Thaddeus got onto his broom, Frederick climbed onto Draco's brand new Firebolt and they both took off into the night.

Daniel was still standing looking at Jane. He didn't seem scared or angry anymore, simply numb. Without speaking he took up his broom, cast a last blank look at the mudblood, turned away from the Nook, and ascended the cool twilit air.

Only after his mates had departed, did Charles turn and follow.

Jane hobbled over to Mrs. Malfoy's wand, picked it up and tried to put it in her hand.

"No Poisson, you daft darky!" Narcissa chided her. "Can't you see that I can't hold it? Give it to Lucius or Draco!"

Without a word, Jane did as she was instructed.

Though he did try, Lucius was too damaged to keep hold of it and he promptly dropped it. So Jane picked it up once more and put it into Draco's hand. Draco, though he was not as bad off as his father, still had a hard time maneuvering it properly, especially as his arms were tied tightly to the chair. He dropped it after a few tries, Jane retrieved it for him again, and finally, just when they all thought Jane might have to leave them there and go track down Bellatrix, Draco managed to unfreeze his mum.

Narcissa was shaking uncontrollably, but after some sloppy wrist movements she finally freed her husband and son from their ropes.

When Lucius tried to stand up, he was racked with such a harsh fit of coughing that he brought up some blood.

"Oh Medea! What have they done to you?" Narcissa cried.

Draco, weak and trembling, Jane, small and lame, and Narcissa, shaken and ashamed, together managed to get Lucius upstairs and into bed. As soon as he had finished getting his father settled, Draco promptly collapsed, and Narcissa and Jane had to help him into the bed as well, to lie beside his father.

Around ten Bella came looking for them.

"What's happened?" she cried from the doorway, as she took in her brother-in-law and nephew on the bed side by side, while Jane was wiping Lucius's forehead with a damp cloth and Narcissa sat at the breakfast table fiercely grinding some seeds with a mortar and pestle.

"We were attacked," Narcissa told her succinctly, as she distractedly pushed some displaced hair away from her sweaty forehead and went back to the arduous task of grinding.

"What! By whom?"

"It doesn't matter. They're long gone, now," Narcissa huffed. She was a mess. Her make-up was smudged around her eyes, her hair was rumpled and, in her haste to administer some potions, she had spilled something orange all over her pink gown. But, for once, Narcissa had no thought to spare for how she looked.

"Of course it _matters_ , Cissy! Tell me what happened!" she demanded.

Narcissa pithily related what had happened at the Nook.

"What did the mudblood say to them?!"

"I don't know, Bella! It just sounded like gibberish to _me_ , but it scared them."

Bellatrix, who had come into the room by this point, strode closer to Jane and asked, "What did you say to them, Mudblood?"

Jane wrung warm, herb-laced water from the compress she was holding, and put it back over Lucius's sweaty forehead. She shrugged.

Bellatrix went up behind her, grabbed her, and spun her around.

"What did you say to make them leave?" she asked, her eyes wild with anger.

Jane gave her a blank look and shrugged again.

Bellatrix raised her hand to slap the waif, but she felt a stab of hot pain run down her shoulder and arm.

Bellatrix looked up and saw Narcissa's wand trained on her.

"Just leave her be, Bellatrix! And _help_ me!" she cried.

"Why didn't she say something sooner?! If she had the power to make them stop, then why didn't she interfere as soon as it began?!" Bella wanted to know.

"Because she hates us," Cissa imparted softly, darting narrowed, acidic eyes at the child.

"Give me your wand, Cissy. I'm going to find them and kill them!"

"No! It's over for now! I-I need…help!" she panted.

Narcissa had taken three years of training for a healer after she'd completed her N.E.W.T.s., but her parents had instructed her drop her studies once she was engaged. She knew a great deal more about healing than the average witch, but she wasn't certain she knew enough to help her husband. Draco was better, he was resting now, but Lucius was still in bad shape. She might send for a healer, but who could say if any would come to the home where the Dark Lord held court? If it came down to it, she would take him to St. Mungo's, with or without their master's permission. But she didn't want the Dark Lord, or _anyone_ , to know what had happened to them. What had almost happened to her.

"Narcissa, those scum have to pay for what they did to you," Bellatrix told her roughly. She was panting with fury and her voice was like gravel.

"Yes, and they will. But Lucius will want to help, and I need to heal him first. Please, go to the Brewery and get the Fuscillitia. It's in a purple bottle, inside the black glass-fronted cabinet, between the windows."

"Lucius couldn't even protect you, Narcissa. He's worthless," Bellatrix said, her tone rife with derision. "Let him die! He just sat there while that cockroach practically _raped_ you!"

Bellatrix felt a cut of pain across her face. She raised her hand to her cheek.

"Get out! Get out, _now_!" Narcissa shouted. "And don't you dare tell anybody what happened, or you'll get worse than that!"

Bellatrix turned on her heel and stormed from the room.

Narcissa sat down at the table, put her head in her arms and started to sob.

"Mrs. Malfoy," she heard Jane say softly.

"What do _you_ want?" Narcissa asked in a harsh, wary voice.

"I's get the purple bottle for you," Jane offered.

"Fine then, Poisson. If you can find it, then go and get it for me. Just leave my sight," Narcissa told her.

Narcissa kept Jane fetching and carrying until three in the morning. Jane was as pliable and meek as a kitten. Without complaint or emotion, she laboured under Narcissa's rude instructions until she finally fell asleep propped up in a chair in the corner.

Around dawn, Narcissa finally sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. She had done it. Lucius was healed.


	17. A Bedtime Story

**Posted** **:** 12/12/15

 **Beta** **:** **the artful scribbler**

 **A Bedtime Story**

 **23rd September, 1998**

"You need to have a talk with Draco."

Narcissa was in her husband's lap. She'd straddled him, her legs dangling down from either side of the ivory, oval-backed fauteuil with burnished silver trim which matched her vanity. She was using her wand to reshape his eyebrows. This was something she'd wanted to do ever since he'd come home from prison.

"A talk about what?"

Lucius was being a lamb. Ever since the misfortune in the Nook he had been deferring to her every whim. She had given him two facials, a manicure, and she'd even gotten him to let her give him a pedicure. Before Azkaban, she had administered these sorts of pampering applications on a weekly basis, without fail, but since he had been returned to her his interest in his appearance had taken such a deplorable dip. He would simply mutter something about there being no point and then ran off to his study to find a stiff drink. But now he was so drenched with guilt that he would probably let her paint his toenails pink if she asked.

"I saw him looking at Agnes yesterday."

Severus had invited himself over for supper with them this evening, and Narcissa was determined that they should all look their best for their master's right-hand man, even if he was just a half-blood. She still wasn't sure whether or not Bellatrix would be joining them, as she had only sidled and balked every time Narcissa tried to pin her down. So the seating arrangement was contingent and this was very irritating, for Narcissa wanted everything to be perfect. Of course, it couldn't be ideal, no matter how well-groomed they were or how appealingly the table was laid out, for Jane would be dining with them as well. And consequently, they would not be supping until almost nine, or later - depending on how long Jane was working.

Narcissa had told Severus that supper at six would be best, for then Jane would be in the spare room trying to slip away, but Severus said specifically that he would like her to be present. Narcissa wouldn't examine too closely any of his potential motives for this odd petition. He was probably just curious about the ghastly thing and might even want to try casting some spells at her…or something. After all, Snape was a scholastically-minded man. And it was remarkable how thoroughly Narcissa was ignoring certain facts about Severus Snape - who was a man who had never been known to talk about women, let alone look at them. He probably preferred the company of men, though no evidence to support this suspicion had ever been latched-on to by the most tenacious gossips. But even if his interest in that small, dark-skinned freak went to a much murkier place than a purely academic one, she didn't care. If the Dark Lord gave his permission, Severus was more than welcome to take Jane to a back bedroom and have his way with her all night long, and Narcissa wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it. After the debacle in the Nook, when she considered that Jane had seen them all so abject, had stayed to the side, then swooped in at the last minute to _save_ them, she no longer felt any inclination to concern herself over Jane's fate.

"I don't think looking at someone signifies a talking to."

Narcissa tilted her head slightly to the side and fastened her baby-blues on him, silently expressing everything that she was thinking.

Lucius sighed and then feigned astonishment. "Really?"

"I know. I was quite surprised, myself. She's such a dense, homely thing." Narcissa sighed, thinking that she would never understand the male psyche. "She's so cock-eyed, I'm never sure when's she looking at me or the person standing two feet to the side of me."

They both laughed at this unkind observation.

"Well, she is not pretty, it's true," Lucius said out loud. What he was thinking was that Agnes had a good figure, though a little too pumplish for his taste, and he had seen Draco noticing it more than once. However, he was surprised that his cautious son hadn't taken greater pains to conceal his only-natural interest in it from his mother.

"I am not saying I am worried he'll start courting her, of course."

"Of course."

"But you should talk to him just the same."

"Should I tell him that it bothers you when he looks at her?" Lucius wanted to know, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

She wasn't amused. "Lucius."

She reached out and took up a blue bottle of moisturizer from the top of her dressing table, delicately shook some into her hand and began massaging little dabs of it into his papery skin.

If her husband's incarceration had aged Narcissa, it was nothing compared to what Azkaban had wreaked on him. He had come home cocooned in a layer of pancake-thick grime and reeking of decay, sunken-chested and juiceless, with bleeding malnourished gums, rotting teeth, lank crispy hair, wrinkled stringy hands, a gaunt face and haunted eyes. For the first week all he had done was sleep and eat; he took his meals off a tray in the bed, and Narcissa wanted to weep when she had to watch him shambling like a hunched, wispy septuagenarian just to make it into the bath or to the toilet. She had spoon-fed and bathed him like a child. She had rubbed healing oils into his sore-ridden feet and back, applied restoring polishes to his teeth, and forced him to chew bitter medicinal herbs to firm his soggy, putrid gums. Narcissa had never experienced the affects of proximity to a Dementor, but when Lucius came home she could not imagine anything as inhumane as not having access to a bath and a toothbrush for an entire year. Narcissa had cleansed and exfoliated him, moisturized and polished him back to health. But all of her tender nursing couldn't reinstate what they had truly lost from his abbreviated sentence in wizard's prison - their dignity and peace of mind.

The most ironic thing about their predicament was that it had all just been a private joke to them before. The Malfoy reputation. They glided through everything - charity luncheons and fund-raising suppers, ministry-related galas and Pure-blood-only balls, teas, and card parties - with a sneering indifference for the rich idiots with whom they had surrounded themselves. They had all the right friends, in all the right places; they said all the proper things to everybody who mattered. And, once home, they tore them to verbal shreds with vicious glee. They had worried and fretted about taking Jane to Diagon Alley, come up with silly, unlikely stories about her, and it had been for naught. _Nobody_ had asked them about her; nobody had asked them anything. They both realized that the few people who had bothered speaking to them at all, had done so out of fear and a stout sense of self-preservation, not a sincere desire to inquire after their well-being. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, the fashion pinnacles of their coterie, sashaying through the peak echelons of society, whom everyone turned to take affably, admiringly in when they chose to grace them all with their presence. Narcissa was the epitome of beauty, taste, and pampered grace, and Lucius the formidable husband who was a handsome force to be reckoned with. They had considered their respectability to be a birthright, exactly like the fair skin they'd been born in, but it wasn't. Lucius and Narcissa only understood how brittle it was, had always been, now that it was broken.

Perhaps they would not have felt it so acutely if they weren't in the doldrums with the Dark Lord. But they knew now that, even with his grace, it would never be the same as what they had taken for granted during their golden age. He was a merciless devil who considered everyone his house-elves, especially the Malfoys. Narcissa's eye for textures and color-coordination, Lucius's preternatural ability to almost magically turn knuts into galleons, none of that mattered to the master. To please him, all that was needed was a drop or more of pure blood, no compunctions about extinguishing life, a boot-licking nature and an enthusiasm for genuflection, and plenty of luck.

Though they didn't say it, didn't have to, both Lucius and Narcissa longed for their old life.

Now, in his lap, she was inexpressibly pleased to know that he was at last letting her get on with the thankless task of re-beautifying him. Lucius rested his long hands lightly on her hips.

"How do so many men come to be so adroit at overlooking the vital reasons which would prevent a woman from sleeping with a man?"

Lucius laughed uncomfortably. "What do you mean?" he dissimulated.

"Don't pretend you don't understand what I'm talking about," she said, narrowing her eyes at him a bit. "It baffles me the way some men seem quite capable of putting their male parts into almost anything that has a pulse and the correct anatomy. Or sometimes even the last bit's negotiable," she said in a voice saturated with disgust and bemusement.

Lucius was shocked. Not so much about her knowledge but at her barefaced expression of it. She continued, "Even _Poisson_ has managed to attract a few licentious looks.

"How?" she insisted.

Lucius wriggled in his seat a bit, and darted a dark look at the wall. He had a pretty good idea what had instigated this conversation. It wasn't just what had happened in the Nook, or even her glimpse of their son lusting after the troll-brained, comely-curved Agnes.

Since the Dark Lord's irrefutable reign had taken root in their home, the Malfoys had been subjected to some disturbing facts about a shockingly large number of his followers. Lucius had seen some of this in the last war, but now, with Dumbledore out of the way at last, it all seemed to be coming to a head. Things were being circulated, unearthed, and now men who had always indulged their proclivities under darkest cloaks of secrecy, were stripping away their shackles of shame. And although they might have to endure some sneering taunts, hardly anybody had enough power, or even pure enough tastes of their own to make judgments. And the truth was nobody really gave a damn.

Was it wrong to have sex with a Muggle? Lucius thought so. To him it would be the equivalent of taking himself out to a pasture and finding a ewe to get off with. Since they were basically animals, then could taking a Muggle without its consent be classified as rape, technically? If it wasn't rape, then did it make a difference if it was a male or female? Venison or veal? These types of high-minded, ethical questions could be asked by philosophers; if they felt like wasting their time on it, and were prudent enough to refrain from loudly proclaiming or publishing any opinions which clashed with the Dark Lord's and his Death Eaters'. Lucius didn't have any desire to try to answer them. Why would he bother? It was all happening with or without his approval. So there was no point in worrying about whether Muggles were human enough to be given the sort of basic rights that would make forcing them to have sex against their will to be categorized as rape. Besides, Lucius had better things to expend his thoughts and energy on.

These days that was mainly revenge.

"How should I know? Ask Macnair or Rookwood," he advised her. "You're the only woman I've so much as looked at in over two decades," he lied with a suggestive smile, making an attempt to charm her away from this unsavory topic. After all, the Unbreakable Vow that he'd made with his wife on their wedding night prevented him from sleeping with other women, not desiring them.

His beguiling words did their job as she smiled back at him and then leaned down and started kissing him. She opened her mouth and began to flick his lips lightly with her tongue, entreating entry. He obliged, and she opened wide and went in deep, forcing his mouth to stretch into her besiegement. Narcissa edged her body forward and she began rocking her hips hungrily against him, digging her deprived sex into his. She brought her long, slim fingers up and entwined them in his cornsilk locks. Her pent-up sensual energy caused her magic to pulse out of her, and the assortment of frosted-glass perfume and lotion bottles, and the pots of creams and powders on the vanity began to vibrate and shake. They made a tinkling music like a wind-chime on a warm spring day. It was quite aggressive, for her. But after a moment Lucius gently, yet firmly, broke his mouth off from hers, pushed her shoulders back, and mumbled something mostly incoherent about his hair getting mussed.

As though she was broken Narcissa deflated on him, draping her arms around him, and resting her head on Lucius's shoulder. He heaved a great sigh of sadness and wrapped his arms around her. Lucius planted a delicate kiss on her hair, and then he began to stroke it in a timid, tender fashion.

He wanted to make love to her, but didn't feel that he could. It was as if a year with the Dementors had sucked away all his desire for such things.

After a few minutes of embracing and gentle caresses she seemed somewhat appeased. She sat up and Lucius did his best to not see her dejectedness as she continued her treatments to his skin and hair.

"So you'll talk to Draco then," she stated a few moments later.

"About not looking at Agnes?"

"About not _touching_ her."

"It's difficult for teenage boys, Cissa."

"It can't be that difficult," she told him firmly. "Do you want a grandchild already?"

Lucius affected a little laugh, trying to clear away the tension. "He is smarter than that."

"He should not touch her, Lucius," Narcissa insisted. "She is too far beneath him."

"She _is_ a pure-blood."

"Show me her tapestrial credentials and I shall show you my belief in her blood purity."

"Narcissa," Lucius stated, frustrated. "He has no access to anything better at the moment."

"Then he can wait until he does. It is not as if he will explode."

"He might," Lucius said, in a teasingly didactic tone. "I read an article about a young wizard who went on an expedition to study unicorns all the way up in Siberia-"

Narcissa put her hand over his mouth while she started to giggle. "Stop!"

Grinning, he pulled her hand away. "No, it's true! He damaged one of his hands on some rocks he was climbing and then there was a bad case of frost-bite on the other- "

"Shh!" she told him, still laughing and still trying to cover his mouth while he gently held onto her thin arm.

"There was an explosion one night and the other fellows he was with went to investigate. They found his entire tent in pieces and there were tiny bits of blood-soaked tea leaves and bones everywhere!"

She buried her face in his shoulder while she convulsed in quiet laughter.

"It's not conducive to any man's health, Cissa. He needs an outlet."

Narcissa pulled herself together, and wiped tears off of her cheeks before she answered him. "Seriously, though, Lucius. He needs to wait until he is married to a nice, respectable girl."

"Narcissa, you do not understand how cruel that is," Lucius insisted. "I remember how hard it was when I his age. You don't know what it is like to be an eighteen-year-old man. Sex is all you can think about sometimes."

"I was not obsessed with it when I was his age," she said matter-of-factly.

And that was true. When Narcissa was Draco's age she'd been curious about sex, even masturbated occasionally, but had felt no urgent need to lose her virginity to any of the men that had asked her to date them. Of which there had been plenty.

"Of course you weren't," Lucius concurred. "That is why you do not understand what it is like for him. Why, when I was his age, I could get stimulated by the most mundane things."

"Like what?" she asked archly.

"Like anything, dear, anything at all. A mere cup of tea has the power to arouse you, when you are that age.

"A cup of tea?" she asked, with an unmistakable note of scepticism.

"I am not exaggerating," he responded, his eyes and voice equally grave.

"Men," she huffed.

"Still, Lucius, I think he should wait," she persevered. "I can not abide the idea of Draco diddling the maid. It is so…debasing, isn't it? Besides," she added, trying to found her opinions on practical objections rather than mere sentimental ones, "he will probably impregnate her."

"It is not as if he would be doing it in front of us, Cissa. And I can talk to him about contraceptives."

"Teenagers are not renowned for their caution, Lucius. Young people tend to get careless in the heat of the moment. If we turn a blind eye to this, chances are he'll have her in the family way within a few months."

"So?" he asked, giving her a hard look. "Nobody would listen to _her_."

"House-elves and Homespells," she retorted.

"We haven't got a house-elf anymore," he muttered.

"The truth will out," she insisted. "We do have Homespells."

"Look, if I have a serious discussion with Draco, I doubt that he'd be careless enough to get a child on her. But even if he did, I am sure they would be more than happy to accept a stipend for it."

"Did that ever happen to you?"

"You would have heard if it had."

"So it doesn't matter? You think our son's prospects are so grim?"

"No," Lucius replied swiftly. "Of course I don't think that. But what is he supposed to do, Narcissa? He is trapped in this house, for who knows how long, and who else is there for him to…" He trailed off. "It's not as if he has access to future prospects at the moment. Or even a good-time girl," he uttered resentfully.

Narcissa didn't really know how to respond to this.

Why did everybody act like it was okay for men? As though they had absolutely no self-control, and everyone should simply look the other way. It was such an infuriating double-standard. And then girls like Agnes always got shunted to the wayside.

If impoverished, young, simple-minded Agnes was approached by somebody of Draco's wealth and stature, it would surely be difficult for her to resist. And if she was too weak to stand her ground, and too stupid to use contraceptives (because Hecate knew she wasn't likely to get any from her baby-making mother), then that was all very lamentable. But why should she be doubted, shunned, ruined - all for engaging in the exact same behaviors in which the man had participated? _Why_?

"Lucius," she said firmly, "I want you to tell our son that he isn't to touch Agnes."

Lucius had his eyes at her midriff for a moment, but then he looked up at her, and, as much as it pained him to do so, resolutely told his wife, "I'm not going to do that."

Lucius could see that Narcissa was getting very agitated by this conversation, but it couldn't be helped. If he hadn't made such a mess of their lives then Draco would have the same freedom as his peers and he could make trips to Knockturn Alley and visit certain establishments that were exactly suited to cater to his hormone-saturated genitals. In fact, Lucius would like nothing more than to escort his son to these places; not because he was so eager to introduce him to it, but, as a matter of duty, he felt compelled to guide him and give him some sound advice. He might not know from personal experience anymore, but he certainly knew from hearsay, which were the safest and most professional brothels to patronize. His own father had never bothered to do that for him, and Lucius had almost been entangled in some scandalously close calls. He'd vowed long ago, when blessed with his own son, he would not force him to flounder his way through that turbid world in the dark.

"I'll talk to Draco and give him some…," and Lucius blushed a bit. All his potions were over two years old by now, and had most definitely expired. "I'll show him my book of contraceptive potions and make sure he knows how to brew them, dear. I promise."

This conversation hadn't gone the way Narcissa had planned. It looked like she'd have to find a more circuitous way to deal with this, on her own.

 **~x~}{~X~**

"The roast lamb is delicious," Severus said.

Being sure not to let it make a clinking sound, he carefully rested the tines of his fork on the edge of his plate, in the three o'clock position, and brought up his napkin to wipe his lips. Once on his right side, once on his left, and then back over to the right once more. If he had any food in the middle of his lips he could try to discreetly lick it off. Whoever had invented all of these silly, impractical rules didn't seem to have taken into consideration that someone might get gravy in the center of their mouth. But then, Severus had never encountered much common sense in all of his dealings with wealthy Purebloods. Or with anybody for that matter. _Common_ sense: what an outrageous misnomer.

His Pure-blood mother hadn't taught him these manners, for she had not been brought up in the same elite class as his hosts, but he had, over the past twenty years, made a long and laborious study of these finicky creatures' customs, and he knew how to conduct himself at their table.

As his eyes had so often done this evening, they traveled over Jane. She had gravy all over cheeks and chin, even a little in her hair, her glasses were smudged with grease, she had found a new home for the majority of her peas and carrots in her lap, and she was currently dissecting a cut of prime lamb with her fingers.

For the umpteenth time that evening, noticing where her guest's eyes had rested again, Narcissa leaned over and hissed, "Poisson! Use your _fork_ , you disgusting little piglet!"

"Sorry about that," Lucius apologized for what felt like the fiftieth time. "We haven't any means to discipline It properly. And It has proved impossible to train."

"She's fine, Lucius," he assured them, placing a thin stress on the word 'she'. "What can we really expect from a Muggle?"

"Has your new school year begun well, Professor?" Draco asked him politely.

"Yes, Draco. Thank you. It has gone very well so far."

"Have you had any luck finding and exorcising your pesky insurrectionists?" Lucius inquired cautiously, carefully arranging his features to avid interest, not critical or amused.

"Not yet, Lucius. But Longbottom and his followers can't last much longer," he told them.

"Longbottom!" Draco exclaimed, feeling shocked and slightly jealous. He would almost be willing to go back to Hogwarts as a fugitive just so long as he could be there again and away from this madhouse. His tone a touch querulous, Draco kept his eyes on the slice of meat he was cutting as he inquired, "Is that prat back this year?"

"Unfortunately, Draco," Snape confessed, his eyes rimming with an angry little gleam. "Carrow…Amycus, that is…saw him down in the lower levels of the castle a couple of weeks ago. Longbottom managed to give him the slip." His lip curled. "Again. But we shall capture and purge them in the end. I'm positive."

"Capture, surely, but purge?" Bella queried in a distant, but determined voice. It was as though she was only half with them. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, and though they had been bred into her, the manners she was exhibiting weren't as polished as those of Severus, the half-blood. "Don't you think the Dark Lord will want an example made of them?"

"I think, Bella," he began casually, and slid his eyes over her ill-kempt personage, "that the Dark Lord has entrusted the running of Hogwarts to _me_. In any way I see fit. The ones who have already come of age, such as Longbottom and Finnigan, will be sent to Azkaban, of course. The others will be expelled."

"I believe the Dark Lord had plans to pass a law to lower the age of accountability for iconoclasts," Bellatrix contributed half-heartedly. That had been on His agenda when she'd last been invited to attend His meetings.

"And still has," Severus informed them. "But he has not accomplished this yet."

Everybody's eyes turned to Jane, who was happily, obliviously humming while she sent an indifferent pea down the slide she had thoughtfully created for it in her mashed potatoes.

Bella released an unrefined snort of disgust, Lucius sighed, Draco rolled his eyes, and Narcissa, her cheeks pinkening up a bit, lowered her head in an uncharacteristically defeatist attitude.

"Well," Bella said coldly, "I think that anybody who displays _any_ opposition to The Dark Lord should be executed immediately."

"Well," Severus returned just as frostily, "luckily the Dark Lord realizes that he wouldn't have many people left to govern if he were to kill _everybody_ who disagrees with his policies. It's a shame everyone is not as long-sighted as he is."

Jane belched loudly at this point, and then she started to make some very wet, unappetizing hawking noises.

"Stop it!" Bella barked at her while she slapped the table so hard that the cutlery jingled, and Severus's fork toppled off of his plate with a clatter.

"I's got somefink in my froats," Jane choked.

Then she got up without being excused and started to leave the sitting room.

"Where do you think you're going, Poisson?" Lucius asked her.

She turned around and told him, "I's gotta go the loo."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to use that word, Poisson?" Narcissa upbraided her.

"Fine then. I's gotta wee." And then she turned again and limped out of the room.

The Malfoys and Bella were shocked when, turning back to the conversation, they saw that Severus had buried his face in his hands and his shoulders were jiggling with silent, yet unmistakable laughter. They'd never seen this closed man displaying such mirth in their entire acquaintanceship with him.

A few moments later he had composed himself once more. "Sorry," he apologized. But the vestiges of his amusement lingered around his eyes and mouth.

Severus couldn't believe what he was witnessing. It was though there was a sapling growing out the top of Jane's head, and he was the only one that could see it. It was absolutely brilliant when he thought about it. Utter genius! He'd been meaning to come around to observe her for some time but hadn't an opportunity to do so before now. He was unspeakably – with infinite layers attached to unspeakably - glad that he finally had the opportunity to come here, and he was also profoundly relieved by what he was seeing. He had been quite worried about her, even after Dumbledore's portrait had implied that she might not be as dumb as she seemed.

He was still concerned for her well-being of course. How could he not be when she was working in such close proximity to a person like the Dark Lord? Not to mention sharing quarters with the Malfoys and Bellatrix. They had all made some incredibly unpleasant remarks to her this evening – and they looked at her like she was a bad case of head lice. Of course, if this was her typical behavior with them, he could hardly blame them. But neither could he help wondering whether they'd ever heard that adage about the flies and the honey. Perhaps not, but there was surely some magical equivalent to it. There almost always was.

"Why doesn't she just use the lavatory that adjoins this room?" he asked.

"Please!" Bella huffed. "As if we'd allow It to pollute our toilets with Its nasty excrement."

"Bella," said Cissa, managing to pronounce her sister's name like a reproof. Then Narcissa turned to Severus and composedly educated him, "Of course we do not allow It to use our lavatories, communal or private. We insist that It always use the one in the spare room where It sleeps."

"I see," said Severus, not really seeing at all, but he was wise enough to abstain from dissenting. Was any excrement not nasty? Apparently they believed theirs wasn't.

"Is she always this…laconic?" he asked them.

"Thankfully, yes," Lucius told him.

"We prefer it, of course," Narcissa added. "Although it can be…frustrating at times."

"How so?" he asked.

The Malfoys looked at each other uncertainly for a moment, not sure how to express what they'd all been aggravated by on separate and collective occasions.

"It's…not secretive, really," Lucius began. "It just does not know how to verbalize Itself very well, and, at times, it would be more…convenient if It could. I suppose."

"Has the Dark Lord expressed this as well?" Severus asked them.

"Not to us," Bella muttered.

"Nor in the meetings," he told them. "He never speaks of her. Do you think she's…proving useful…to our cause?"

Lucius glanced at Narcissa before he guardedly answered, "He's only ever questioned It in our presence once. He…never really praises It of course. We- "

"We aren't sure," Bella cut in. "He's never said one way or the other."

"But he does have her spying for him on a regular basis."

The Malfoys, and this time Bella as well, exchanged looks once more. They hadn't expected Severus to ask them such detailed and blunt questions about any of this. Is this why he had come to sup with them?

"Have you discussed this with our master?" Lucius asked.

Severus bestowed him with one his impenetrable looks. "No. I'm discussing it with you."

Lucius wasn't sure what he should or should not tell him. Once upon a happier time he would have simply informed Severus that the Dark Lord's business was nobody's but his own.

"If the Dark Lord wishes you to know what goes on up here, He'll tell you, Severus," Bella said in a scathing voice. "You should know better than to- "

"Bella!" Lucius cut in forcibly.

"Lucius," Bella addressed her brother-in-law with drooping, scornful eyes. "He's being impertinent and he should know better."

"Bella," Narcissa murmured reproachfully.

"What!"

Lucius and Narcissa were both looking curses at Bellatrix. She had no subtlety.

Bella turned back to Severus and said, "I believe the Dark Lord would be most interested to know what you've been asking us this evening."

"By all means," he replied with cool asperity, "tell him."

"The fact is, Severus, we don't know how useful he finds It," Lucius told him.

"What sort of experimentation has he done with her?" he asked.

"Ask Him," Bella hissed.

"There's no harm in telling him that, Bellatrix," Lucius said. "Many of our acquaintance are curious about Its immunity to magic."

"They cast spells at It," Bella amended. Then she turned to Severus and told him, "You are more than welcome to cast some spells at It."

Severus should have asked Narcissa to exclude her sister from this meal.

After the pudding was finished, Severus took the Malfoys off guard when he told them he'd like to take Jane to her bedroom. She was in a chair playing with some of her dolls, her eyelids were slowly dropping and she kept yawning.

"I don't see why not," Lucius said looking to his wife, the expression in his widened eyes directly contradicting his statement.

"Severus," Narcissa said. She stopped, then continued, "Does the Dark Lord know that you wanted to have supper with us and…and see…the mudblood?"

"I didn't mention it to him, no. Is there a problem with me taking her to bed?"

Alarmed by his language, Narcissa and Lucius turned to each other again, and both, by a series of encoded looks, were trying to get the other to ask him to clarify his meaning. Was this meant to be an indication of some heretofore _hidden_ paternal instinct, or was he asking for permission to help Jane change into her nightdress?

"I suppose that depends on what you mean by take It to bed," Bella baldly enlightened him. And with a beacon of delight burning in her eyes, she asked "Did you mean walk It to Its bedroom, or have you decided to at last reveal your…," she raked her eyes up and down him in a highly suggestive manner, "predilections?"

Now it was Severus's turn to blush.

"We don't mean to be indelicate," Narcissa explained. "It's simply that, however much the Dark Lord has distinguished you, we are certain he would be displeased if you…well, if _anybody_ …were to…without his permission."

 _Merlin's nightgown_ , he thought to himself. _What's the world coming to?_

But he already knew the answer to that question. Their endemic world was now ruled by an unscrupulous madman.

"Rest assured that what I said about taking her to bed can only be interpreted literally, rather than… _euphemistically_."

All three of the Malfoys looked relieved by his answer. It wasn't that Lucius thought Severus would throw a tantrum if he wasn't allowed to have his way with the rank thing, but these days who was _he_ to deny a man of Severus's position what he wanted?

"Come along now, Jane," Severus called her, his voice commanding.

Narcissa noted Jane's reaction to this, her relaxed stance as she stood up and walked to him. She didn't hesitate or seem in the least bit reluctant to go to her room with him. Her words in the Nook had illuminated at least one indisputable and disruptive fact. The Malfoys now understood that Jane knew things about the people who associated with their master; she probably had dirt on everybody. And Narcissa decided, from watching Jane's detached willingness to be alone with Severus, whatever she might or might not know about him, he had no unnatural interest in pre-pubescent girls.

As soon as Severus and Jane were out of the sitting room, he felt a small warm hand slip into his. He turned to look at her, but her eyes were facing forward.

When they were in her room she got a nightdress from her bureau and then she went into the lavatory and closed the door.

Severus walked around the room, examining her surroundings. It was clean, tidy, spacious, and well-furnished. When he came to the square breakfast-table stationed in the corner of the room, he stopped when he saw that it was packed with art supplies. Small containers of paints were grouped according to color on one side, a modest stack of white paper beside it, there was an empty jar full of different sized, upturned brushes, and there were other jars which held sticks of graphite and pencils, and a thin flat wooden box, when opened, revealed a water-color set. Tiny glass beads rested in miniature pots, and in a thin cardboard box he saw scissors, jars of glue, and a small pack of glittering stickers. All of Jane's things were tidy and organized, the paint brushes were clean, and she'd even taken the time to arrange it all with a sort of symmetry. Severus thought that this was probably a better representation of her true nature than what he'd seen at the supper table earlier.

When he got to the windows he saw that some of her creations had been adhered to the walls and went in for a closer examination of them.

Severus was no expert, or even a connoisseur for that matter, but even he could see the quality in her drawings and paintings. They weren't just surprisingly good, they reflected talent, an observing eye, a steady, coordinated hand, and he found much beauty in what he saw. Jane had made many precise, realistic drawings of the manor, the woods and gardens surrounding it, or sometimes it looked as if she had sketched groups of objects that she had brought together and situated. He was particularly impressed by one with a gilded vase packed with roses and some of the magical, broad-leafed zerdangas from Narcissa's greenhouse, and in the forefront of the picture were a small hinged keepsake box, a gathered sheer embroidered scarf, and an elaborate, three-branched candelabrum. Every little detail had been captured; every shadow shaded, and every slice of light untouched.

There were paintings as well, but many of these were more whimsical. Cartoonish people wearing silly, and often risqué, outfits like the superheroes and villains of Muggle comic books. Some of her paintings weren't of anything at all; they were, at first glance, simple blends of disconnected hues. But Severus looked at them anyway, to try and see what Jane saw when she looked at the world. They were splashed and dashed, blended and bleeding, stroked vibrancy tempered with sobriety. Half-made shapes seemed to fall apart at the seams and run into anonymity - a curly-cue that transfigured to a fleur-de-lis, a silhouette of a woman's full figure that melted to a puddle of blood – or was it a foot? One of them Severus found quite compelling, but he was made uneasy by it as well. It reminded him of Lily. It wasn't a feeling he could have explained or defined; but it was perhaps just the color pallet she had chosen. The apple-pink of her blushing cheek, the rich wine curtain of her hair, and the deep-sea green of her cheerfully somber eyes. He turned away from it – the unexpected longing glaring at him from the place where he kept her in the dark. Lily was only aired out when he couldn't stop it happening.

And as he perused her motley collection, for the first time since he'd laid eyes on her, Severus began to consider that she might very well be _much_ older than she looked. In the wizarding world artists had never been given credit as beings of any valuable talent, tending to be looked down on as people who simply had little magic.

Jane came out of the bathroom in her nightdress and joined him by the window. He noticed that she'd washed her supper off of herself. He also noticed the severely ascetic pattern of her nightdress - white cotton, with nary a ruffle, ribbon, or stitch of lace.

"These are yours?" he asked, sweeping his arm around the decorated alcove.

She nodded.

Severus, a man who believed that compliments were only sincere when they were infrequent, told her, "They are lovely."

"Fanks."

"Has the Dark Lord seen them?"

She nodded.

"Has he ever mentioned them?"

She shook her head.

He found Jane's little art gallery to be more sad, certain proof of humanities promptness at dissecting itself. Misanthropy, thy name is Severus Snape.

"Are you alright, Jane?"

She nodded.

"Will you look at me?"

She complied.

"Are you alright?"

Her large eyes were magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. He inspected them with care, looking for the person who sat in the corner painting.

She remained empty and unfocused. Then she looked away again and shrugged.

"'E send you?" she asked the window.

"The Dark Lord?"

She looked at him again and this time her eyes were less disengaged from him. She shook her head at him again.

"No. He did ask me to keep an eye on you…when I can. But I came for myself," he told her quietly.

Severus didn't know why he'd come, not exactly. He did want to make sure she wasn't being harmed, in keeping with the promise he'd made to Dumbledore. But he almost wished that she would speak to him. She, like him, was hiding, he was certain of it, and they were the only ones who knew the truth about one another. He felt inexorably drawn to Jane.

"Do you need anything Jane?" he asked sincerely.

She shrugged again.

"Is there anything you'd like me to bring you or- or do for you?"

She nodded.

"What is it?"

She stood there like a stiff animal that was alertly sniffing for a sign of a predator.

"Tell me, child."

Instead of answering him, he watched in swelling bewilderment as Jane walked to her bed, took up a candelabra from the little table beside it, and using the edge of the bed to carefully lower herself to the floor, she lifted the thick, embroidered bed skirt, and crawled beneath it.

About a minute later she came out from under her bed, but she'd brought something with her. He saw that it was a small, leather-bound, gold-embossed book.

She went to the sofa tucked into the corner opposite her make-shift art station and sat down. She looked at him then and patted the cushion next to herself.

Severus joined her on the sofa as requested, and once he was situated comfortably Jane curled her legs up, burrowed herself under his arm and into his side and rested the book on his leg. She flipped it open to the middle and began to riffle through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

"Read," she commanded him.

Severus wasn't very comfortable with her snuggling against him. He pulled out his wand and cast a spell at her bedroom door, making sure they wouldn't be interrupted without a little warning. He had asked her, though, whether there was anything he might do for her, and intuitively he understood that wanting to hear a bedtime story was merely the subtext. The act of being read to – the kindness instilled in the action – and being unflinchingly embraced – these little gifts were the plot.

Human touch was a foreign country whose borders had been sealed off to Severus ages ago. He had not planned for his visit properly, had squandered his savings for it with stupid choices, had been too distracted trying to accumulate power to memorize the topographical maps and plan his route; he had never bothered to study the language and customs of it, and he was long resigned to the reality that he would never be awed by the majestic sights, never savor the exotic flavors within. There was only one person he'd ever wanted to travel there with anyway, and after her death he had never even bothered renewing his passport. Apparently Jane had not given up on her dreams yet.

The story she had selected was a child's fairy tale, about twenty pages long, with lots of vivid illustrations, many of which, in keeping with traditional children's books in the wizarding world, were rather macabre. Severus had never read or heard this story before. She must have gotten it from somewhere around the manor. He briefly wondered whether the Malfoys knew she had it here, and then he wondered what else she might have hidden under the bed.

"Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young witch named Elphaba," he began.

She sighed and seemed to melt a little under his arm. She rested her head on his chest, and pressed her ear to it.

By the time the story was finished she was fast asleep. He nudged her awake, walked her swaying to the bed, and helped her climb in. Severus took off her glasses, carefully folded them and set them next to the table by her four-poster, and, sweeping his wand around the room to extinguish all the candles save the ones in the candelabra next to her bed, he left the room.

 **~x~}{~x~**

"It was probably just enjoying the show," Lucius said.

Warm firelight from the table candelabras and wall sconces spilled over the ample sitting room and re-shaped it into a cozy grayish haze. The crystal decanters on the sideboard and the antique ornaments twinkled softly in the shifting flamelight and the all the corners of the room had fallen into a comforting, dusky obscurity.

Severus had left a half hour ago, and the Malfoys and Bellatrix were still in the sitting room having some postprandial drinks and talking about Jane. Again. They'd thoroughly canvassed the topic by this point, but it kept coming up again.

Narcissa, Lucius, and Draco had all recounted what they'd overheard Jane saying to Charles and Daniel in the Nook, but they couldn't make knuts or galleons of it. One was utter nonsense to them and the other couldn't have been English. They had each asked her more than once about what it had meant, but she just kept shrugging at them.

"Of course It enjoyed it," Draco contributed. He was sipping some imported bilberry wine, lounging contentedly in a wingback. Unlike many lanky young men who untidily draped awkward limbs pell-mell, Draco knew how to conduct himself like a gentleman and kept his legs gracefully crossed, and his elbows were tucked neatly in. "I've reckoned It has to have a brutal side after the way It kept pestering me on the day I had to drink the Amorentia. You saw what It was like."

(And Jane had sneezed on him.

A few days ago Jane had asked him some asinine question about two of the portraits that hung on the sitting room wall, and Draco, knowing she'd had a bath that morning, had leaned down to her level and begun to berate her for being stupid and…well, for existing. Without any warning Draco saw her head tilt back and her face scrunch up, and the next thing he knew his whole face was covered in a fine mist of mudblood spittle. He felt it go into his eyes and he was positive that some of it had gone into his mouth.

Jane fastened round, artless eyes on him.

Draco stood there for about an entire minute, internally weighing the pros and cons of hitting her. He'd also contemplated vomiting on her. If she'd spoken to him, even apologized, or if her mouth had so much as twitched he would have lost his control.

Without speaking, Draco had turned around and headed for the door of the sitting room.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked.

"To shower," he'd replied.

Draco brushed his teeth about four times, threw out the toothbrush, opened a new one, and scrubbed his teeth again. Under and on top of his tongue, the roof of his mouth, he scraped the stiff bristles over the sensitive skin of his inner cheeks - he'd brushed bits of his mouth that he'd never bothered with before. Then he'd taken and a long, steaming shower and washed his face and neck so forcefully that he'd accidentally gotten some soap in his eyes. Even though it had stung like hell it was a welcome sort of pain, because he imagined the soap cleansing his eye of her saliva.

It had happened three days ago but he still couldn't shake the feeling of contamination.)

If Lucius and Narcissa had different recollections about what had happened on the Love Potion Day, they would certainly never embarrassed Draco by contradicting him.

"Of course, It's nothing but a brute, Draco," Bella richly agreed. "Even a child as dim-witted as she is, has to understand that magical people are her betters. That's what makes her getting involved in all this the most shameful. That nasty little thing, snooping around in everybody's business, imagining Itself equal to the witches and wizards that It should be serving. The Dark Lord ought to put a collar on It, have It wear a sheet or a bath towel, and go around serving us supper and refilling our drinks. Not let It sit down to take meals with us. That would teach It It's place posthaste."

"Hear, hear," Lucius seconded and raised his glass of undiluted vermouth to his sister-in-law.

She smiled, raised her glass of dandelion wine in return, and, for once united, Lucius and Bellatrix took a drink together.

Narcissa was pleased to see that they were at last getting along with one another. They'd been speaking to each other quite frequently and amiable lately. She'd spotted them, heads to together, thick as thieves, several times over the last week and a half. Whenever she drew close they hurriedly broke apart and changed the subject. She knew, of course, what they were discussing.

Narcissa was trying to forget not only what Bella had said about Lucius, but also that she had abandoned her in her darkest hour, and forced Narcissa to rely on – of all people – Jane to help her nurse her husband back to health. She hadn't told Lucius or Draco about the way Jane had silently and passively helped her long into that terrifying night, as she didn't want to heap more humiliation on them than they already had. Jane had tended simmering potions, cut and ground magical plants, kept Lucius, flushed and feverish, from overheating by applying cooling washes to his face and bare chest, and made countless trips to the Brewery to fetch books and bottles for her. Of course, as Jane couldn't really read she'd often brought all the things she thought _might_ be what Cissa needed, but luckily she'd always managed to bring her the right thing along with the extraneous.

"That's one thing that has always puzzled me about It, though," Cissa mused. She took a moderate sip of her cherry cordial and said, "It told the Dark Lord that the reason It went to Dumbledore was because the Muggle-scum It lived with were treating It like a house-elf. But It _is_ a house-elf. It has no family, no money or connections, It's so ugly and crippled; It was left on the steps of an orphanage, for the sake of Circe! How did It ever come to the conclusion that It was fit for anything better than serving others?"

"It was because of It's ability to…'slip away'" Lucius told her sagely, even bringing up his hands to add the air quotes.

Narcissa murmured skeptically, "I suppose."

If anybody had asked the Malfoys why they hated Jane even more now than they did before the day in the nook, they probably would have said, with complete honesty, that it was simply because she hadn't helped them sooner. But that was only a small part of it.

She had used her "power" to help them. The Muggle. The deformed, ugly, stupid, ineloquent, dark-skinned, Muggle, with an obscure pedigree, who had a higher status than them. It was also the fact that they now understood that Jane didn't particularly like them. _She_ didn't like _them_. How could she not adore them? They were everything that she should envy, everything she should aspire to be. Not that she ever _could_ be like them. But still, even if she didn't like them she should still try to make them like her, to please them. However, Jane didn't seem to care one way or another, what they thought of her. And after everything they'd given her, the toys, the clothes, the fine food, and the lavish accommodations, she should at least have a sense of gratitude towards them. Now, of all the trite and derogatory adjectives they used to define Jane, they also had to add uppity and ingrate. It was Dobby all over again.

Another agitating aspect of what she'd done in the Nook was incontrovertibly proven that she knew things…about everybody. Including them, most likely. She'd reluctantly admitted to the Dark Lord that she'd seen his servants in the lavatory and even having sex. They had never discussed this aloud as it was too uncomfortable to reflect on in the privacy of their own minds, much less verbalize with each other. Lucius and Narcissa especially grew terribly uneasy at the idea of Jane watching them in bed together. Before and after Azkaban. Which was worse, her seeing them naked and sweaty, moaning and panting, or her noticing that they didn't anymore? And perhaps even understanding why. For Lucius, the latter prospect was the most mortifying. Narcissa was equally troubled by both scenarios.

Even Draco couldn't help wondering whether Jane had ever seen him in the buff. And then it made him worry about how he measured up. She'd probably seen dozens of male appendages. If Draco was smaller than average in that department then _Jane_ knew it. Draco himself wasn't certain about it, but she might know. He was almost tempted to ask her, but what if she told him yes, that he was exceptionally tiny for a man? He'd rather not know. And Draco was also incredibly jealous of her ability to watch people without them knowing about it. If he had her power, the first place he'd go would be the female dormitories of Hogwarts. _All_ _four_ of them. What a waste that such a gift should have been indiscriminately bestowed on someone like her. Where was the justice in that?

He also worried about whether she'd seen him talking to that ghost while he'd sobbed his bleeding heart out.

Bellatrix wasn't that worried about what Jane may or may not have seen her doing, simply because she had absolutely no shame.

The thing that worried Lucius the most, even more than the sex issue, was the Lindgren baby. Had Jane seen what had happened that night? It was absolutely the most shameful secret that Lucius possessed, and as it had all happened in the company of his sister-in-law and the Dark Lord himself, there was a very good chance she had been there. The events of that disgusting evening followed him around like a diseased dog he'd once been foolish enough to feed. The cries of that child had clanged continuously over every other sound for his entire year with the Dementors.

Although he and his family were frustrated with Jane's refusal to explicate what she knew about the scum that had hurt and humiliated them, Lucius was secretly relieved that Jane wouldn't expound on it. She was demonstrating a discretion that Lucius whole-heartedly welcomed. He only prayed that she would continue keeping her mouth shut. If Narcissa or Draco ever found out about that night, in addition to killing Jane, Lucius doubted he would ever be able to look his wife or son in the eyes again.


	18. Kew

**Posted:** 12/13/15

 **Beta:** the artful scribbler

 **Kew**

To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

\- Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea

 **10** **th** **October, 1998**

Kew was in the market looking for supper.

She had already visited the produce section and selected some large ginger roots, papery garlic bulbs, and she had even found some Facing Heaven peppers. Normally she had to make a special trip to the Wardour Street Asian Market to find the spicy red chilies, and she was happy that Cheng had pointed them out to her. She also purchased a pineapple for Long and some mandarins for Popo.

She was going to ask Popo to cook a special supper for them tonight. Kew had good news to celebrate, and after she finished picking out some fresh meat for her small family she headed back toward their flat on Lisle Street; but first she wound her way to Gerrard Street Liquor and picked up some excellent rice wine to complement their meal and mark the occasion.

She was so happy today. Even though winter would soon be here and make everybody in London miserable with cold wind and rains, she felt as good as if it were the first warm day after a long cruel winter. On her way home from the liquor store she couldn't keep a light skip out of her ankle boots. If only Danny would come back to her tonight, her pleasure would be complete.

On the street-front below their block of flats a small Chinese restaurant kept a little Buddhist altar on a pedestal beside the door and, though she normally passed by him without a second glance, today Kew set down her shopping bags, fished some money from her pocket to set in the little green tray, and sent a thankful prayer to her ancestors. Kew and Long and Popo didn't need anymore hungry ghosts bringing them misfortunes – they'd already had enough, heaven knew. But thanks to her Danny, all of that was behind them now.

Once she'd completed her prayers and made her offering, she took up her bags, and went around the corner to the entrance of the flats above. On her way up the narrow stairwell she greeted her neighbors that were on their way out. Some of the older women, quite rudely, made her stop and listen to them complain about their ailments. Kew thought that old people were the saddest, most insufferable things in heaven and on earth. Didn't they know that young people had better things to do than listen to them describe their aches and rashes? She wanted to tell them her happy news but thought it would be bad luck to tell anybody else before she told her little family.

Long, or Lance as his school friends called him, wasn't home yet when she'd finally waded through three descriptions of itchy boils and two impertinent inquiries about where her English bloke had got to.

"Danny has a very important job now," she'd told Mr. Deng, the nosiest and most perverse of all her neighbors. "He's out making money all the time now."

"When is he going to make an honest woman of you, Kew?" he asked with a mischievous and slightly wanton gleam in his tiny slanted brown eyes.

"Someday," she told him and then, instead of waiting for him to end the conversation - as was the polite thing to do with elders - she started climbing the stairs and called back to him, "The fish is going to spoil, Mr. Deng. Tell your wife I said hello."

She couldn't stand that terrible old eel. He really was the worst.

Popo was on the couch sewing a patch on her winter coat from last year. She greeted Kew when she came in and put down her mending to help her unpack the food.

"Ooh. These oranges are beautiful Kew. Many thanks, my sweet granddaughter," Popo said smiling. She pulled out the peppers and frowned at them. "Did you buy these from Cheng?"

"Yes, Popo," she answered.

"They're no good."

"What? They're fine, Popo!"

"That man and his wife both have the demon-eye, Kew!"

"They do not, Popo! The peppers are good! Look at them."

Her grandmother went and put them in the bin.

She rolled her eyes behind her grandmother's back, but decided to let it go. She didn't want to argue with her now.

"I have great news, Popo," she told her.

"You saw Danny at the petrol station today?" she asked. "Did he ask you to marry him?"

"What? No and no," she told her angrily.

Granny sagged against the counter for a moment, affecting an exaggerated sadness. "Ah, my little Kew. How can I ever rest in peace if I haven't seen you married?"

She shrugged and advised her, "Ask the stars, Popo."

They unpacked the rest of the groceries in silence until Popo found the bottle of expensive wine.

" _Ehh_! Why are you wasting money on this, Kew?"

"I told you I have good news, Popo. You haven't even asked me what it is," the young woman said, her dipping, rising Mandarin taking on a distinctly petulant inflection.

"Well, tell me what it is, Kew, so I can understand why you're wasting our money on this silly wine!"

Kew was upset and she didn't want to tell her now.

"Eh, Kew! Stop making that look! It will get stuck and ruin your pretty face. Then you'll never get a husband."

"Make the kung-pao, Popo," she told her grandmother and left the kitchen.

The little old woman brought out a chopping board, a wok, and some utensils and began to prepare the supper.

While she chopped the ginger and peeled the garlic she fretted about Kew's fate.

Danny had the demon-eye. She'd seen that the first time she met him. But he had rescued them from the 14k demons who had brought them here from China with false promises of an easier life. By then it was too late for Kew's mother and Popo's only son. They had already been killed by the bobbies. And poor Kew had gone to the brothel, to work off her dead parents' debt. She was only fifteen, but those evil demon men didn't care if she was just a child.

Kew was miserable at Madame Chi's whorehouse. When she was allowed to come home on Sunday afternoons to visit her Popo, she would just lay her silky black head in her lap and cry and cry for her dead parents and beg Popo to take them back to China. But they couldn't leave the country. How could they? They barely had enough money to eat, and they weren't even legally allowed to be here in the first place. Then Danny had come along.

He met her at Madame Chi's and Kew told her later that he was taken with her the first time he laid eyes on her. Within three months, he had taken care of their debts, gotten Kew out of that filthy rat and roach infested hole, and found the three of them this spacious flat to live in. He paid the rent, their utilities, bought Kew beautiful dresses and even gave them cash for food and necessities. Danny had the demon-eye, but he had saved them.

Now, with help from Danny, Long was enrolled in a good school and he had plenty of time and energy to focus on his studies. He wanted to be a doctor, and Popo and Kew saved all their extra money for his future. He was a very bright boy, and made good marks. At least, he told Popo he made good marks. She barely knew a lick of English and she certainly didn't understand how any of it worked. But she believed him. How could he not get good marks when he spent all of his free time in his room, studying?

Long was headed in a good direction. But what would happen to Kew?

Popo knew why Danny didn't ask her to marry him, of course. It was because of where he had found her. Men wanted to marry virgins. East or west didn't matter - all men wanted a pure woman for a bride and to bear their children. But he still cared for her granddaughter. Though he shuffled and muttered and never wanted to answer questions about his job or his family, he couldn't hide the fact that he genuinely cared for Kew. Popo could see it all in his eyes.

Someday he would get bored with Kew, and stop coming around all together. Sometimes he wouldn't show up for weeks at a time, and when he came back he would only say that he'd been working, and pull a large wad of notes out of his pocket to prove it. For the past year he'd been bringing them a lot of jewelry too. Kew kept the pieces she liked and they sold the rest at a jewelry store and added the money to Long's school savings.

But someday he wouldn't want to make the sex with Kew anymore and then she could find a nice Chinese man who didn't know about her past and marry him. Since she wasn't a virgin she would probably have to marry someone older, a widower with some children that needed tending. Perhaps. It would all work out. The angry ancestors were appeased now. After all their misfortunes, they had to be.

In her room Kew sat at her small vanity and brushed her hair. Danny told her he liked long hair so she was growing hers out. It was almost to her elbows now. Every time he came back to her after he'd been gone for a while, he always said something nice about how much it had grown in his absence.

Kew looked at her small angular face in the mirror. She was almost twenty now. She was getting so old. Her mother had been married by the time she was sixteen and Popo had gotten married when she was fourteen. But this was a new time, and it was England, not the tiny village she'd lived in back in China. It was okay for women to wait until they were older to get married. It was expected really. All the smart, witty English girls on the telly didn't get married until they were in their middle to late twenties.

Danny was so good-looking, for a white man. She told him so too. She told him he was handsome enough to be in the movies.

"We go California," she told him. "You could try be in movies."

But he just laughed at her. He laughed at her all the time. He thought she was quite funny.

She missed him. He hadn't come to see her in three weeks.

She reached over and picked up a framed picture which she kept on her vanity. She had bought the frame at a little second hand store and each of the four silvery sides were engraved with the word: LOVE.

It was a picture of her and Danny at a restaurant. She was seated on his lap and she looked so beautiful and happy. He looked happy as well. He was wearing a fine suit made of a bright blue silk, and it made his gorgeous eyes glow and small creases fanned out from them. She was wearing a red silk cheongsam with shimmering green embroidery which depicted traditional Chinese dragons. She had begged him to take her out for months; to dinner, like a real date. They almost never went anywhere together.

"You ashamed of me?" she had asked him sadly.

Of course not, he told her, he was just busy making them all money. Did she want to live in an alley and eat from skips? Or did she want to stay in the nice flat he'd given her, and have lots of pretty clothes and jewelry?

She wanted him to marry her, introduce her to his mother, and have a baby with her. She didn't want to be kept, she wanted to be his wife. But Kew never said that to him. He knew.

After the dinner from the picture, he had brought her back here and had sex with her for two hours. Though he hadn't that night, sometimes he hurt her. He didn't mean to hurt her, she was sure of it. But she was so much smaller than most English women and Danny was tall, even for a white man. She always tried not to moan too loud when he was pushing himself into her with so much force that it felt like he might be trying poke a hole through her. She didn't want Popo and Long to hear them and think he was cruel. And then afterward he always stayed with her all night, and held her close, and whispered he was sorry if he'd hurt her, but she was so sexy that he just couldn't stop himself.

She always knew when he was going to hurt her and when he would be gentle with her. When he came back to her after he'd been away for a while he was always so sweet and tender. He brought her flowers, wine, and other little presents, little offerings of love. He made the soft love to her, explored her, seeking only to please her. He knew all of her secret places, every fold and crook, and he knew whether to suck, kiss, blow, or lick. It was delicious when he was in a mood to give pleasure.

But then, after he had come to be with her many nights in a row, he would get less nice. Rather than showing up with gifts in his hands, he would show up with bitterness in his eyes. He got all quiet and hard to make happy. She did everything she could think of to make him feel better, wearing the sexy little negligees he brought for her, kissing him behind his ears, rubbing his shoulders, putting his sex in her mouth for as long as he liked, and massaging his anus when she knew he was about to come. But it didn't seem to make anything better. Nothing did. And then he would disappear again.

But it was odd. Because this time he had gone away again, but he was still in the beginning gentle phase and had even brought her a little stuffed panda bear on his last visit.

She hoped he was okay. If something ever happened to him she didn't even know how to find out. She asked him for his telephone number, but he told her he didn't have one. That was a lie of course; it had to be. Who didn't have a telephone? Except people who didn't have enough money for them. But Danny was rich. He just didn't want her calling him all the time since he was so busy with his job. Whatever that was.

The strong aroma of cooking ginger and garlic filled Kew's nose. It was delicious. She hadn't got a lunch break at the petrol station today. She hated that terrible place. Her boss was always saying dirty things to her, and making terrible jokes to her about calling immigration if she didn't work over-time when he asked. He was a horrid little man. The coffee tasted like sludge, the donuts arrived stale and the customers were so rude about it to her. It was fried bread coated with sugar, not a delicacy, and they only cost 50p! So what did they expect when they bought cheap snacks at the same place where they got fuel and cigarettes? The store was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, she had to wear the ugliest uniform, and she had to take the stinky, leaky, heavy rubbish bags to the skips! She only worked there because the man who owned it, Mr. Kalpar, hadn't asked to see her documents. He didn't pay her as well as the English workers either.

So many times she was tempted to just quit. It was especially hard to stay there when Danny paid all of their bills for them. But Popo would be so disappointed in her. She always hinted around that hard times might be just around the corner, and Kew knew she was right. She might be young, but she was too acquainted with the harsh realities of life and the uncaring ways of the world to think that everything would always be this easy for them. One day Danny might leave and never come back to her.

Kew wiped a tear from her cheek. Where _was_ he? Why had he left after he'd given her the bear? Even if he never came back she would never forget him. How could she? He had rescued her from that sick, disgusting whorehouse where she had felt that she was slowly dying with each new man that fucked her. Even if she cried, none of them cared. She was just a warm hole there, not a person. Luckily she'd only had to endure it for a few months before Danny found her.

He was sweet and gentle from the beginning.

"Ent no need to cry, luvey," he'd told her. And he'd taken a soft, clean piece of cloth from his pocket and used it to wipe her eyes and nose. No one had done that before. "I ent gonna 'urt ya, doll." Many of them did.

And his beautiful eyes were so kind. He took off his big, clunky boots and lay down on the bed beside her. He put one of his long arms beneath his head, and casually lit a cigarette.

"You speak English?" he asked.

She'd nodded, afraid to speak.

"I'm Danny," he said. When she didn't reply he asked, "Got a name?"

She whispered it, still sniffling and shy.

Danny got up and left the room for a little while. She was scared he would go to Chi and complain that she was crying. Sometimes the customers did that and then she wouldn't get fed one of her meals the next day, or sometimes, if too many of the men had complained about her, they wouldn't let her leave on Sundays to visit Popo and Long. But when Danny came back he was smiling.

"Gotchya for the night," he said cheerfully. "So we can get cozy like, yeah?"

And he had stayed for four hours. He was patient with her; slow to undress her, but quick to make her laugh, and he kissed her and kissed her. At the end of the evening she begged him to come back and see her.

"Please, Danny?" she softly asked. "I be better for you next time. I not know much yet, I just start, but I do good for you next time. Please."

He promised her he would but, by then, she didn't really believe in things like hope or happiness anymore.

But he did come back a week later and stayed with her long into the night again. And for the first time since she'd gone there, she had initiated the fellatio with him. And he kissed and licked Kew in places that she'd never before even considered might make her feel good inside. Since he was only the second customer to see her that day, she didn't feel so sore like she always did by the end of every night, and he made her sex explode and she'd cried with the pleasure of it. She hadn't known that sex could be warm and good, instead of simply painful and humiliating.

Afterward he asked her a lot of questions about her life. She cried again, when she told him as much as she could with stilted English about Popo, Long, her dead parents, and her life in China. For the first time since she had come to the wretched place she felt truly seen.

He kept coming back to see her and every time he came into the room she lit up like a firecracker with happiness. And at the end of each night she would cry when he had to leave and beg him to come again.

What she had never expected was for Madame Chi, the gross, cold-hearted woman who ran the place, to come into her room one day with a little black bag and tell her to pack her things into it because her debts had been paid and she was allowed to go home. She didn't even suspect that Danny had something to do with her freedom. She was just very, very confused, because whenever she asked them how much longer she would have to work there, they had always said that her family's debts were too large and that it would be years before she could work it all off.

But when she'd come outside, her little bag of clothes slung over her shoulder, Danny was waiting for her on the street, and he had a huge grin on his face.

She ran to him, jumped into his waiting arms, and he spun her around a couple of times and then he kissed her. Right there on the street, in front of all the people walking by them. It was exactly like a romantic ending in a movie. That's what Danny had given her. A movie star moment that she would cherish until she died.

"You belong to me now," he'd said to her when he'd done kissing her.

 _You belong to me._ And she belonged to him still: body, heart, and soul.

Kew heard the front door close and then Popo asking Long about his day at school. After a few minutes Long went to his bedroom and closed the door. Kew knew that he was unpacking his school books and settling down at his little rickety desk to work at his studies. He was so disciplined. He was only fifteen, but just like his big sister, he'd tasted enough of hungriness and fear to understand what life could inflict on the unwary. He was hoping that with good enough marks he could get a scholarship and attend medical school. They had no idea whether he would be allowed to attend university without a legal status, but Danny had told Kew that he might be able to help him. All Long wanted to do was take care of Kew and Popo, the way they took care of him.

After a few minutes Kew went to his room and lay down on his bed.

"How was school?" she asked.

He looked at his sister, her thin frame draped over his bed. She was so pretty.

"It was good, Kew. How was work?"

He smiled at the face she made, her scrunched forehead and her twisted mouth.

"That bad?"

"It's the worst," she told him. "Today, Mr. Kalpar made me spend two hours in the cooler, restocking the beer and soda, while he trained a new bloke on the register."

"There's someone new?"

She nodded, her long hair falling into her face, so she had push it back with her little brown hand and tuck it behind her ear. "That new girl he hired last week, Andrea, already quit."

Kew rolled onto her back, stretched, and then she began to examine her nails.

"I got a new job today," she told him in a deceptively casual way.

Long looked up from his Trig book in surprise. "Really?"

A big smile overtook his sister's face as she turned toward him again and propped her head in her hand. "I haven't told anyone else yet! I went by today and the nice lady who runs the shop told me I can start next Tuesday. I'm so happy Long!"

Truthfully he told her, "I'm happy for you Kew. What sort of shop is it?"

"It's a clothing shop! They mostly just sell second-hand things, but it's so much nicer than that awful petrol station, Long. The shop is small, and there are lots of beautiful boots and dresses and the woman who runs it, Ms. Christie, she told me that the workers get a ten percent discount on the merchandise!" Kew rolled onto her back again and gazed up at the ceiling, not really seeing it, just the cute little boutique where she would begin working next week. "The dresses are so cute and fashionable, just like the girls on the telly wear, and there are jewelry displays as well. Not real jewelry of course, like Danny brings me, just costume junk, but it's still very stylish! The shop is called Second Time Around, and it's only around the corner from here, so I won't have to walk and walk through the rain and cold this winter to get to work, and the hours will be better too, because the shop doesn't open until ten-"

Long listened to and watched his sister, her happiness animating her face in a way that few things could.

When Kew had been sent to the whorehouse, Long was only eleven, and he hadn't really understood what was happening to her then. But now he knew. Long knew that she had been raped over and over when she was just his age. And it broke his heart when he thought of it. They had all been sad when the hooligans who had brought them here – stowed in the hull of a big cargo ship – told them that their parents had both been killed by the bobbies during a drug raid. They hadn't even gotten to bury them properly. They were just gone one day. But then the next day the Triad thugs had come for Kew.

He had tried to fight the men, even though they had guns and he was only a little boy, half-starved and confused. They'd just knocked him to the ground over and over while Popo and Kew had screamed and cried. The brutes had just laughed at them. Then one of them had picked Long up, carried him to the little bedroom that he and Popo, Kew, and their parents all shared, thrown him on the mattress that lay on the floor, took down his pants, and raped him.

"Maybe you liked that?" he asked afterward. "Maybe we should take you to the whorehouse, too? A pretty little boy like you would get a lot of customers."

He was in too much agony and fear to even respond at that point. He'd had no idea that a male could be raped. He didn't even know that he _had_ been raped, not precisely, not then. He just knew that it had hurt like nothing else and made him feel so ashamed that he wanted to die.

But the man hadn't made good on his threat. They left Long and just took Kew.

And the months afterward were ingrained in his memory as well, Kew coming home on Sundays, crying and talking of them trying to run away, even though all of them knew it was hopeless. They told Kew that if she tried to run away when they let her out on Sundays then Popo and Long would be killed. They used her love for her family to keep her hostage. And that was a whole separate brand of evil.

Like Popo, Long didn't care much for Danny. But like his grandmother, he knew better than to say anything bad about him. In their family Danny was like a god, all-powerful and inaccessible. And you didn't badmouth a god, even if he was sleeping with your sister.

Kew was only sixteen when Danny had gotten them out of debt and found them this bigger flat to stay in. (It wasn't a really modern or glamorous flat; it was just less tiny and less filthy than the one they used to stay in. But at first it had seemed like paradise to them.) And Danny told them that he was twenty-five, but Long didn't believe him. He looked like he was over thirty, and what sort of man who was his age wanted to fuck a sixteen-year-old girl? A shady one.

That was Danny in a nutshell. Shady, with shifty eyes and a pet stick. He always had this stupid stick when he visited them. Mostly he kept in his pocket, but every once in a while he would take it out and start twirling it between his fingers, absent mindedly, or he would just run his hands over it. He was so odd.

And you could never pin him down. He wouldn't answer questions about himself, where he lived, where he'd gone to school, or what he did for a living. Nothing. It was all very suspicious, and Popo and Long had secretly come to the conclusion that whatever he did for money it wasn't on the up and up. But Kew adored him. So Popo and Long held their tongues. Because, whoever he was, they owed him.

Long was inexpressibly happy that Kew had finally got a job that she would like. She deserved happiness, after everything she'd gone through.

Later that evening Kew finally told Popo about her new job in the dress shop.

"And it's only around the corner, by that Thai restaurant on Gerard Street, so I won't even have to leave the flat until a quarter till. Ms. Christie said that the girls who work there get a special discount on the clothes and- "

"How much will they pay you, Kew?" was all Popo wanted to know.

"Well, for a clothes shop, it pays very well Popo," Kew said, lowering her eyes and pushing the last piece of fish around her bowl with her chopsticks. "There are these adorable displays in the window, and Ms. Christie told me that if I'm willing to stay late, I can help her dress the mannequins and arra-"

"How much will they pay you?" Popo asked again.

"Well, I won't make as much as I do at Mr. Kalpar's, but after four weeks she said she could give me a raise, Popo."

"How much will you make after the raise?"

"5 pounds an hour," she responded, still using her utensils to maneuver the fish around, creating trails through the sauce.

" _Ehh_! Kew! That's 50p less than you make at the petrol station!"

"I don't care, Popo! I can't stand that filthy place anymore! It's horrible there!"

"You think I like working at Lau's Laundry?! You think I like touching and folding strangers' smalls, Kew?! No! But we do what we have to so Long can go to school and be a doctor!"

"It's okay, Popo," Long tried to soothe his angry grandmother. "Let Kew do something she likes. Besides, if she gets a discount on the clothes then it could make up the difference."

Kew gave her brother a happy, grateful look. She knew _he_ would understand.

Popo stood up and began rapidly, roughly gathering the dishes, muttering under her breath about silly girls and their fixations with fashion and how when she was a girl in China they had to make all their own clothes and she would never consider taking less pay just so she didn't have to walk so far in the rain and cold, and that's what comes of spending all your extra time watching the telly and wasting your money at the movies and now on wine too and she'd always known this would happen because single young women hadn't any sense these days.

Instead of helping Popo do the washing up, Kew headed to her room in high dudgeon, muttering under her breath about how clueless old people were and they were just jealous of young people because they knew how to have fun and old women were just all dried up and lifeless, complaining about their arthritis and their indigestion, waiting for their silly, boring knitting catalogues to come in the post, and she should have known Popo wouldn't just be happy for her.

She was interrupted from her soft ranting when she heard someone knocking on the door. It was Long. He always knocked.

"Come in," she told him.

Long came in and sat on the chair by her vanity.

"She still mad?" Kew asked.

"I calmed her down a little," he said.

He watched his sister getting her uniform ready for work the next day. It really was an awful shirt. A bright orange button-up with a patch of the petrol's logo on the upper right side; they didn't make any small enough for Kew and she swam in it. She had to wear these ugly khaki trousers and some sturdy trainers. She looked like a dustman in it.

"I don't see why she just can't be happy. Would it kill her to say, 'Congratulations, granddaughter. May your days be long and filled with prosperity.'?"

"You know how she gets about money, Kew," he said in his calm way. Long was always so unruffled and long-suffering.

"You don't know what it's like, Long. She never gets angry with you. You're perfect," Kew spat venomously.

Long didn't say anything. Popo and Kew never got angry with him. He was the baby of the family, the only male, and he was too quiet and inoffensive to create any contention. He just went to school, focused on his subjects, and tried to mediate between his grandmother and his sister.

"She'll calm down by tomorrow Kew. Don't be so hard on her. You know how she worries," he counseled her.

"We have so much money saved Long!" she whispered loudly, not wanting the neighbors to hear her through the paper-thin walls bragging about how much money they had, as they kept it all in cash, hidden right here in the flat with them. "I know why she worries. I know," Kew conceded sadly. She didn't want to talk about Danny when he hadn't been by in so long. She feared that saying it out loud – that he might never come back – could make it come true. "But whatever happens, happens. And I can't stand waking up before the sun every morning and going to that dingy job."

"I know," he assured her. "It's going to be okay. You'll be great at a job with clothes and stuff. You're so stylish Kew."

Kew was somewhat appeased.

"I have to go to sleep now, Long," she told him.

She had to get up and go to the petrol station at 5:30 the next morning.

Long left. Kew got into her pyjamas, some loose cotton trousers and a sleeveless tank top, climbed into her double bed, and finally fell asleep.

 **~x~}{~x~**

Kew woke up.

Somebody had pulled back her blanket and a cool draft made her shiver. But then she felt a warm naked body sliding up to her and she smiled.

Danny was back.

She looked at the small digital clock by the bed and saw that it was just past midnight.

He put his arm around her. The scent of booze and his particular Danny-smell washed into her, filling her with longing and a sense of safety.

"Hmm. Danny." She whispered his name.

"Kew," he answered softly.

He started to run a hand down her side and it felt wonderful. She sighed contentedly and sought out his mouth with hers. It felt like he hadn't shaved in days and his shaggy stubble scraped against her cheeks and nose as she began to kiss him. His lips parted and his tongue, wet and firm, dipped into her sweet waiting mouth. He pushed his hand into her pyjamas, cupped her bottom for a moment, and then he began pushing them down.

She was eager for him and helped him remove them. Once her trousers were kicked down, abandoned in a heap at the bottom of the bed, he broke off the kiss and gently pulled off her shirt. And then his hands were everywhere, cupping her small breasts, tugging at her narrow hips, and fondling her sex. She spread her legs for him and stifled her moans as he began to circle her clitoris with his wise, probing fingers. Danny took one of her little nipples into his mouth and worked it deftly with his tongue, extracting more pleasure from her willing body. She threaded her fingers into his hair and groaned his name again.

This is where she belonged. Where she always wanted to be. In her Danny's arms, being made love to.

He took his time with her tonight. He made an unhurried path from her ears to her neck with his warm, moist lips, his tongue familiarizing him with her tastes and textures once more. Danny licked his way over her small crests, kissed his way through her shallow canyons, suckled into her thighs the way she loved, nuzzled his face between her legs. Her erratic breath swelled in the silence when his tongue at last found and glided into her moist pink well. He replaced his tongue with a finger and he began a rhythmic pressure to make waves of tingling pleasure, while his tongue was massaging her clitoris. She was panting, making her unique little mewls of longing, arching her hips upward, signaling him when to increase the pressure and rhythm.

"Danny!" she cried when she came, yanking on his hair and thrusting her dripping sex on his mouth.

She lay panting and quivering, her sweat cooling her heated body in the cozy darkness.

She felt Danny slide a ring onto her finger and then he switched on the lamp.

The sudden light blasted into their eyes and they both waited a couple of minutes before they could see one another properly.

As soon as her eyes adjusted, Kew looked at the ring that Danny had placed on her hand. It was gorgeous, the biggest diamond she'd ever seen.

"It real?" she asked tentatively.

He just nodded and then she really looked at him.

He looked horrible. In addition to all the neglected facial hair, he was swaying a bit even though he was firmly planted on his thighs, his eyes were wild looking, bloodshot and yellow in the corners, and deep blue crescents beneath them gave her the impression that he hadn't slept properly for days and days. Even his skin was looking rather sallow and yellowy.

"Danny!" she started, sitting up and startling him with her exclamation. "What be matter? You sick?" she asked in alarm.

"No," he told her, his voice so gravelly and worn it simply added to the idea that he might be ill. He kept furtively glancing around the room, in the corners and even at the ceiling once or twice.

"Will you marry me, Kew?" he asked, ceasing his studying of the empty air and looking at her.

"Well, I- " She broke off uncertainly. "You drunk, Danny?"

He nodded. "A bit. But would you please marry me, Kew?" he asked again.

Kew couldn't believe that he was finally asking her to marry him. She desperately wanted this to be real, but his appearance combined with his intoxication couldn't help but make her wonder if he was completely in control of his senses. Was this something he was going to change his mind about later?

Kew wanted to be his wife with all her heart, always had, but she had just never expected him to actually ask. And this was not the way she imagined him asking her either. She thought he would show up much earlier in the evening, tell her to fix herself up nice, and then take her out to a fancy restaurant and propose to her over champagne and candles. And then he would take her off to his huge posh flat or townhouse or wherever he lived, and she would finally get to meet his mother. And then they would spend the rest of the night packing her things so she could move in with him right away, and while they boxed up her pretty clothes and her pictures and jewelry – the shabby furniture would all stay here for the next poor little tenants, for of course at Danny's palace there would be beautiful, undreamed of luxuries for her to be mistress of – they would talk about how many children they wanted to have, and Danny would joke around about how he wanted to have ten, and she would act all shocked, but then she would cleverly turn it around on him and pretend to reveal that she'd always wanted to have a really big family, and then he would tell her he was only teasing and he thought that two would be perfect and she would laugh and say that's fine, because two was how many she'd always wanted as well, one boy and one girl, in that order. And everything would be perfect. A happy movie ending, just like she'd always dreamed.

He could see the doubt in her eyes. "I ent gonna change my mind about this Kew," he assured her. "Please marry me. Tell me we'll spend the rest of our lives together," he pleadingly commanded.

His eyes were so desperate; their unflinching blue were filled with a barren sort of hopefulness. She couldn't refuse him.

"Course I will," she told him. "Yes."

The two of them were studying each other in the weak lamp light, both filled with doubt and confusion.

"Ent ya 'appy?" he wanted to know.

"Yes, Danny," she assured him. But she was experiencing such a shocking, worried feeling; was she happy?

"You ent acting 'appy," he said accusingly.

"Danny what's matter? You look terrible!" she burst out.

"I'm fine, doll," he told her. "I'm fine." And he tried to smile at her but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I just want ya to be 'appy, Kew."

"Well, I want marry you, Danny," she said. "I happy, but where you been, Danny? You look bad. You look like you very sick, Danny."

"I'm fine, Kew." He pulled her into her arms and held her close.

He lay down on the bed after a moment and pulled her on top of him. He began to carefully guide his sex into her.

"What about welly?" she asked.

"Let's make a baby, Kew," he whispered.

Now her whole face lit up. "Really!" she squealed in delight. "You mean, Danny?"

He smiled back at her - this time happiness crept out of his eyes at her - and he nodded.

Kew leaned down and kissed him while she put her hand over his and together they melded his sex into hers. She gasped into his open mouth as he began his careful strokes, making sure he didn't push into her too deep. It was the soft love tonight, the best love. Danny knew Kew preferred being on top to any other position, as it gave her the most control of the depth and pressure.

She sat up and began rocking her hips with the movements she needed to attain maximum pleasure.

Danny studied her while she worked her sex around his. Her lustrous, liquorice-black hair fell straight and smooth over her shoulders and breasts. Her pink, bow-shaped lips parted so she could take in more raspy breaths while she focused on the intensity, the sweet sensation of his hard shaft working in and out of her squelching, tight little sex. Danny reached up and pushed a curtain of hair back over her shoulder so he could feast on the sight of her small, perky breast – the slight curves, the cinnamon-colored nipple. He reached out to it and traced his finger lightly over her nipple until it contracted.

Danny simply gorged himself on her, and he reached beneath the pillow for his wand when he knew she was about to climax again.

"I love you Kew," he told her.

She smiled and said, "I love you- oh," gasp, "too," pant, "Danny!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

The flash of green light hit the young woman in the head.

Instead of going limp, and ceasing her breathing, Kew began to convulse and blood poured out of her nose.

"Fuck!" he yelled.

Danny hadn't been able to execute the curse on her with enough force – like he'd already done effectively on Popo and Long before he came to Kew's room – and she fell over, twitching and her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.

"I'm sorry, Kew!" he sobbed.

He didn't know what to do, but he had to end her suffering.

This wasn't how he'd wanted to kill her. He wanted her to be mid-orgasm, happy, in love and ecstasy. But he'd fucked it up. Just like he fucked everything up.

Danny put a pillow over Kew's head and held it there until the tremors stilled and he knew she was completely gone.

"Kew, baby," he sobbed quietly.

He pulled the limp, lifeless body into his lap and cradled her in his arms, rocking and crying and stroking her hair and face. The blood that had gushed from her nose was all over him, his hands, and his chest, and even his face as he kept leaning over to hold her head against his and give her a few last kisses.

"I'm sorry," he whispered jaggedly to her again and over again.

Once he threw his eyes around the room, as though looking for something invisible, and he cried loudly, "Ya 'appy now, ya little bitch! _Huh_?! Ya watchin' _this_ , ya fuckin' stupid little bitch!"

Danny should have left Kew and never come back months ago, after he'd first signed on to work for You-Know-Who. He knew that. He knew it.

But he couldn't stay away from her. Kew looked at him like he was a hero, not a villain; not some idiot fuck-up who wasn't even a good enough wizard to become a Death Eater. This was where Danny could always come to be a good person. A competent provider, all powerful, all knowing; where he could secretly use his magic to solve every problem and nobody would "jokingly" insult him.

If Chuck, or Freddy or Mal or Tad, or any of the other men who served the Dark Lord had found out about her, she would have been killed violently. They would have done it in front of him and watched his face carefully the whole time, to make sure he wasn't 'upset' about it. "Ya know we's only doin' it for your own good, right?" they would have asked him. And he would have lost all the respect he had painstakingly carved for himself in Chuck's crew. It had happened only a few months ago when word had gotten 'round about a Snatcher that was keeping a little Muggle on the side like Danny did with Kew. He hadn't been there when it had all gone down, but he'd heard about it afterward. He should have stopped coming here ages ago.

Danny raped. He raped Muggles every once in a while and he didn't really mind doing it, but it wasn't as satisfying as for him as making Kew come. Once he realized that forcing the prettier Muggles that they robbed and tortured to have sex was sort of expected of him, he'd begun doing it occasionally to satisfy Chuck and the others. It was just something he did with his mates as a way to bond with them – socially, like getting pissed and exchanging limericks. But he'd long considered the ability to make a woman moan with ecstasy, rather than agony, to be the true measure of being a man. He just should have found himself a Pure-blood or a half-blood witch to pleasure, instead of his little Kew.

Ironically, he'd joined up with the Dark Lord because he wanted the money to keep taking care of Kew. He'd turned to a life of robbery to maintain this flat for her. But he'd been robbing Muggles on his own before Dumbledore died. It was a risky, stupid thing to do back in the beginning, and he'd never tortured or murdered any of them at that point. The Ministry enforced strict laws that were meant to prevent magicians from taking advantage of helpless, oblivious Muggles, and if he'd ever been caught at it, he could have gone to Azkaban.

But when that freaky little bitch had pretended to speak Mandarin to him in the courtyard, Danny had decided it was time to act. If anybody found about Kew…that would be it. He would be branded as a mudblood-lover for the rest of his life. So Danny knew from then until now that he would have to come here and erase her, and her little family. As horrible as it was to kill Kew, the alternative was even worse.

After a while, Kew's body lost the remnants of warmth, and his eyes dried up.

Danny got off the bed and looked at the messy lifeless body of what had been, only an hour before, the love of his life. He dug around the covers to find her clothes and gently began to redress her. When he finished, Danny went to the small bathroom, wet a washcloth, and crossed back into her room and cleaned the dried blood off her face. He laid her out neatly and pulled the blankets over her. Now she might only be sleeping. He left the beautiful, expensive ring on her finger and gave her a few last tender kisses.

As he kneeled on the floor next to her bed and thought about never seeing her again, Danny realized that he had made a terrible mistake by killing her. She was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He should not have come here tonight.

His eyes were dry now, and his heart felt empty. But his mind was raging. Somehow, he was going to punish that fucking freak for this.

As he got up and pulled his robes on, he started to make a plan.


	19. A Dissembler in an Oubliette

**A quick shout out to Alice Helena! Any author would be lucky to have you as a fan. It's rare to have a reviewer who consistently does justice to the effort I put into my story. Thank you so much for your continued support. I said it a couple of chapters back and I'll say it again. This one's just for you. :)**

 **Posted:** 12/16/15

 **Beta:** **the/ artful scribbler**

 **/A/N:** **Luxminder is pronounced with a short i sound like in bit. Not long i like bite.**

 **Daxender is pronounced Daksender.**

 **And Xander is pronounced Zander.**

 **Hope you enjoy this belated introduction to the real "Jane".**

* * *

 **A Dissembler in an Oubliette**

The Poet

Farther from me, o hour, you grow.

Your wingbeat wounds me upon its way.

What would I do with my lips, though?

With my night? With my day?

I have no beloved, no shelter,

No homestead at which to be.

All things I lavish my self on

Grow rich and lavish me.

 **\- Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Walter W. Arndt**

 **16th October, 1998**

 **10:20 pm**

It was a night for good thoughts.

Crowding sweeps of Milky Way stars engulfed the night, blotting out the inky parts. The obliterated darkness was in retreat, glossed over by encroaching points of light. The piercing clusters of stars were practically embracing one another tonight, groping after each other in their black void, tired of being cold and alone. Like Luxminder.

She sat in the deep soft window seat, bathed in the lactescent starglow, smoking a cigarette that she'd nicked from Dragon a couple of hours ago when he had gone to the loo. The chilly air from the open window sucked all the tell-tale smoke out of the room, and she was allowing happy memories to wash through her. This was something she rarely did. It felt dangerous to remember her real past - to remember who she really was.

Without anybody watching her, her whole manner was softened, toned-down - more real. She appeared much calmer for one thing. And her eyes shone with intelligence and a saddened, obdurate substance as they gazed into the multitude of bright stars that had come out to wish her a happy birthday. In fact, if anybody saw the slow easy way she sucked and puffed on the cigarette, they would have been shocked that a person who looked as young as her could seem as equally jaded. Luxminder felt older than the stars.

According to the clock on the overmantle, it wouldn't be her birthday for another hour and a half, but she didn't care.

She had considered telling the Malfoys it was her birthday - not that she would ever reveal her true age to them of course - but children always got excited over birthdays so it would have been the appropriate way for her to behave. Every time Luxminder had tried to tell them, she had instead found her mouth clamping tightly closed – almost of its own accord. So she kept putting it off and now it felt too late. But this was just fine. After all, it would not just be her birthday soon, and it gave her quiet pleasure to know that, no matter how far apart they were and no matter how long it had been since they had seen each other – or _would_ see each other for who knew how long – she and Daxender would always be almost the exact same age as each other. One of them had come first of course, but they would never know which – because they didn't know, and probably never would, who their biological parents were.

If Luxminder told the Malfoys it was her birthday, either one of two things would happen. They would put on a very bad pretense of caring - might even give her a cake and some presents – and she could sit through it all and try not to cry. Or, especially now that their hatred for her had reached such a fever pitch, they might say "And?" Then proceed to ignore her as much as they _always_ did. Since Lux couldn't decide which of these pathetic outcomes would be the most sad-making, she ultimately decided that she wasn't going to tell them a thing.

She was just going to celebrate it by herself, in her own way.

Once the cigarette was spent, pulled casually down to the butt, Luxminder flicked it gracefully out the window, picked up her one candle and the only source of light she had in the night, and headed into the leviathan lavatory. The paltry candle was no match for the cold marble room; the vaulted ceiling kept stretching darkly up, easily outpacing the sole flickering flame. She could have taken the candle to the sconces on the wall, held the burning flame to the cold wicks, lit the whole place up like an obscenely sparkling cathedral, but Lux liked being encapsulated in the small yellow globe of warm light. Her little sphere of illumination made her feel close and safe.

Luxminder set the solitary candle on the wide ledge of the bath. The hot tap never had to run for a while before the water warmed the way it did in Muggle homes, so she turned both taps together and fiddled with them for a minute until the water was as hot as she could stand it. Then she started taking down her favorite salts, oils, and bath beads and Luxminder used them to create an infusion: the sharp, clean scent of lavender, softened by an underscore of sweet, sumptuous sandalwood.

Luxminder undressed swiftly and although the small light cast by her single candle seemed to give the commodious loo more shadows than light, she avoided looking at herself in the large gilded mirror as she crossed the room to get some luxuriant, duvet-thick towels. When alone, her limp was a lot less pronounced than it was when there might be witches and wizards, real or painted, watching. Back at the bath, she sat down on the broad edge and removed her prosthetic limb.

Once she had it off, Luxminder spent the time it took for the enormous bath to finish filling massaging the area where the rubber suction held the fake limb to her stump, stimulating her blood flow the way the doctors had instructed her years ago. The end of her not-quite half-leg was completely smooth, unlike an amputee's; there were no shiny, hardened scars rimming it, no puckering ridges from cut-off muscles. It was just a birth defect, an incomplete thing. Dragging along behind her, slowing her down a bit – keeping her separate from people who were born whole and taking it all in their smooth-flowing stride. She loved and hated it, equally. It had endeared her to some people, and kept her isolated from others. Like Dax. Well, not that it was _his_ fault for that, but rather the people that had decided to adopt him, and leave her. Luxminder was always being left behind.

She slipped into the scorching water and gasped a little from her abrupt immersion into the heat. The displaced foam gathered up around her face, blocking her view of the room and she pushed fluffy bubbles out of her way. Luxminder slid her bottom out from underneath her and let her body float to the surface. She relaxed and closed her eyes. Once her body warmed up, got used to the scalding temperature, she almost felt like she was in a sensory deprivation tank. Not that Luxminder had ever been in one, she had only read about them. But she sort of liked the idea of them. To be completely cut off from the world seemed like it might be a sort of paradise to her a lot of the time.

She felt almost nothing in the water; her arms and legs were totally malleable, like jell-o, and she drifted idly around the steamy, frothy basin in a purposeless bliss, and let herself remember Dax.

Luxminder pictured his large violet eyes. They were a completely gorgeous, utterly unique blend of indigo blue and royal purple – the way her eyes were lapis lazuli and emeralds. She saw him little, sitting beside her on the paint-chipped porch swing, dangling his perfect, jean-clad legs; pumping them in a rhythmic sync with hers.

He was such a serious little boy, with a fiery intensity that blazed from his eyes and even his body and sometimes it put her on edge. It was captivating as well. He was a charismatic, captivating little boy. He was much more special than her, she knew.

 _"You think your dad and mom might want to adopt me?" he asked her, out of nowhere it had seemed to her then. She knew he did not love his adoptive parents as fiercely as she loved hers, but at that inchoate age she had yet to realize how much he was beginning to loathe them._

 _"You have a mum and dad, Dax," she told him._

 _She wished with all her heart that her mum and dad could adopt him and they could always be together, instead of just on the weekends. But Luxminder could not think it was at all possible that his parents would ever let him go. The idea that a mum and dad might give away a child they had adopted was too scary to consider._

 _"So? I spend more time with Jenna than I do them," he murmured, so quietly she could hardly hear him above the squealing chains of the old swing._

 _"Do you?" she asked. She knew that Jenna was his nanny, but she thought he was only with her when his parents were too busy working._

 _"Yeah."_

 _"But…" she hesitated, not even understanding enough to know what to ask. "You're with them in the evening when they get home from work."_

 _"Lenora doesn't really work," he said in a sulky voice._

 _"She's an actress," she said stupidly._

 _Dax fixed her with a look that was half-pity, half-contempt. Luxminder did not understand that the pity was for himself and the contempt was all for his mom, not her. And she looked away from him, at one of the palm trees across the street, swaying gently in the breeze like a giant green umbrella._

 _"She doesn't really get any jobs anymore, Dolly. She just goes shopping with her friends all the time. Sometimes she meets with her agent, Mike," - he said "Mike" the way her mother, a nurse, might have said 'incompetent doctor' - "and she has about one audition a month. No one wants to hire her because she can't act and she's too old."_

 _"But Ben's a big-shot producer," she said uncertainly. It was something Luxminder had overheard her parents talking about and she did not really understand what all of it meant. "He has…influence," and she smiled with happiness at finding an appropriate context to use the word in – they were only seven. "He can help her. Can't he?"_

 _Dax's face warped into a grisly sneer, which she hated, while he told her, "Ben offered to pay for some acting lessons."_

 _"She takes you with her to shop sometimes," she said. "And last month they wouldn't let you come over that weekend because they took you to the zoo."_

 _"Jenna took me to the zoo," he told her._

 _"What?"_

 _He just nodded. Agreeing with all the shock in her voice._

 _"You wanted to go to the zoo with Jenna instead of coming here?"_

 _"What?! No! I wanted to come here, but they said I needed a break," he told her, mumbling so bad on the last part that she could barely make out what he'd said._

 _"A break from what? Me?" Luxminder could not believe what he was telling her. She could feel tears building up behind her eyes and she started to blink them rapidly, like she was sending the palm tree across the road some urgent message in Morse code. Despite all of her desperate dots and dashes, the hot tears seeped out anyway._

 _"It isn't just you," he told her. He did not want her know what his parents were like, the sort of mean thoughts that they had about everybody, especially each other. He just wanted her mom and dad to adopt him._

 _"They don't like me."_

 _"They don't like anybody," he assured her. But that just seemed to make her sadder. That's what he loved so much about his sister. She was nothing like all the spoiled, jaded kids he went to school with in Beverly Hills; the majority of whom came from divorced, patched-up step-families, and most of whom were taken care of by full-time nannies like him. But his sister was like a turtle without a shell. Her big, aquatic eyes were like portals to vast seas of sweetness and innocence._

 _He slid across the bench and put his arm around her._

 _Luxminder had never been to her brother's house. But she could tell from the way he talked about it that it was huge - way better than hers and her parent's. She also knew that he had an Atari and a Nintendo, about a hundred games to go with both of them, and a TV in his room to play them on – undreamed of luxuries in her neighborhood._

 _"Do you like coming here?" she wanted to know. What she really wanted to know was whether he liked her, but she was too insecure to ask him that. If he said no, it would break her._

 _"I love it," he said simply. "Why else would I want your parents to adopt me?"_

 _She looked at his eyes while he told her that, and she could see a lot of sincerity in them. She beamed at him and he started wiping away her tears._

 _"Do you like it when I come?" he asked her, his eyes suddenly filled with fear and uncertainty._

 _She nodded. "I love you, Dax."_

 _He laughed, pleased that she had said it out loud. Luxminder was the only person Daxender knew that he could have completely normal conversation with. He never knew if she was lying to him, he never got bored with her, and even though he had to work to understand her, he found himself liking that the most. He reveled in the mystery of her quiet mind._

 _"Do you think Xander and Liza would adopt me?" he asked again._

 _"I think so," she said softly. "They act happy about you coming over."_

 _"I know they like me, Lux," he said. They seemed to like him a lot more than Ben and Lenora. "Do you think they have enough money to have another kid, though?"_

 _Her eyebrows slid closer together at his question. "Probably," she said, confused. Her dad and mum didn't really talk about money around her._

 _Money was just about all Ben and Lenora talked about. And fought about. Constantly. But she didn't know that yet. It would be a few more years before she and Daxender would trust each other enough to start confessing all their secrets to one another. "I don't know. Do you want me to ask them?"_

 _He nodded as he instructed her, "Ask them tonight when we're having dinner, okay? Then I'll know the truth."_

 _"Should we ask them if they want to adopt you?"_

 _"It wouldn't bother you if I live here too? Are you sure?" He seemed uneasy._

 _"How could it?"_

 _"Because, if I live here too, then Xander won't have as much time to spend with just you, Luxminder. He'd have to spend time with me, too," he explained._

 _Oh. It hadn't really occurred to her that his living with them meant she'd have to share her parents' attention with him. But she didn't care. She wanted her brother around all the time. He never called her mean names the way a lot of the kids in her neighborhood and school did. He never tried to make her feel bad about being born without a leg. He liked to read books almost as much as she did, and he never gave her funny looks when she used big words the way other kids did. Daxender was clever and funny and beautiful._

 _"I'd really like it," she told him confidently. In a characteristic gesture of affectionate spontaneity, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smiled at her again, his white teeth flashing brightly against his thick red lips and the olive tone of his skin. They looked so much alike._

The water was still pretty hot.

Luxminder sat up and got the bar of French-milled soap from its niche. She looked at her hands and was pleased to see that the soaking was softening the dirt caked under her nails. She held the soap between her hands and started to swiftly gyrate it until a thick lather started forming and oozed out the sides; then, using her fingernails, she started to work the black goop out from under them.

She wasn't worried that anybody would notice how clean she was tomorrow. Their eyes always slithered right over her, as if she was slathered in grease. And she wasn't worried that someone might come to the room and find her in the bath, on her own, without any rude language or empty intimidations about certain men stripping her clothes off and throwing her into the tub. Once they'd locked her in for the night, nobody poked their head in the door to see if she needed anything or to make sure her candle was still burning. This was the place where she was relegated with relish, at the end of each day, so the Malfoys could unburden themselves of her unbearable presence. This was the place where they brought her to be forgotten.

After her nails were clean she shampooed her hair and soaped off the rest of her body, making sure she got in every last crease and cranny. She added a little more hot water to the tub, leaned back again, and closed her eyes once more.

 _"Dolly, tonight we are going to create a feast that even the Duchess of York couldn't resist," her dad told her as he tied a big apron around his middle._

 _She giggled. Her dad was such a goof._

 _She was standing on a stool at the sink washing some lettuce. If her mother were home from work, she wouldn't be on a rolling stool. But her dad rarely discouraged her from doing anything that a kid with two legs would do._

 _"Maybe she'll smell it," she said, playing along. "Maybe she'll ring the bell and ask if she can eat with us." When she was at school she talked like an American, but at home she talked like her dad and mum did._

 _"Well, the Santa Anas are blowing something fierce this time of year. It could carry the savory smell of our scrrrumptious supper to our motherland and into her rrroyal nostrils. So she might very well decide to make the trans-Atlantic journey and dine with the diaspora," he said, his accent broadening the way it always did when he talked about his beloved Britain. And he since he was talking about the royal family, he added some silly posh inflections. "Perrrhaps we should bring out the good china."_

 _She laughed at him again._

 _"What are we making, Daddy?"_

 _"Zucchini casserole and…" he stopped._

 _"And?"_

 _"And?" he returned._

 _She looked down at the lettuce in her hands. "Salad?"_

 _"That's an excellent idea my dear. Why don't you grab some lettuce and wash it for us?" he asked as he headed over to the sink to grab a shallow baking-pan from the cupboard by her feet. When he got close enough to see the head of lettuce in her hands he made an exaggerated face of mock surprise at her, clapping his hands on his cheeks and drawing in an audible gasp. "How'd ya get it so fast, Dolly?"_

 _"Dad," she scolded him, and rolled her eyes. But she couldn't help giggling at him, no matter how corny he acted. "You left it by the sink."_

 _"Oh. That explains that then."_

 _He let her cut the zucchini. "Very good, dear. Perfect, uniform slices."_

 _They took turns blowing on a spoonful of steaming marinara so they could taste-test it, and when it was ready they layered the sauce into the pan with the squash, mozzarella, and some fresh basil leaves from her dad's herb garden._

 _Once the casserole was in the oven they debated over what to put in the salad._

 _"We should finish off the carrots, Dad. They're looking a bit dodgy."_

 _"Well zen by all means, Luxie, off weez zair 'eads."_

 _"Some capsicum would be good, don't ya think?"_

 _"Your mother isn't fond of that, Dolly."_

 _"But we are. Sides, she'll just pick hers out."_

 _She watched as he took a metal wine-bucket out of the bottom of the hutch and started putting ice in it._

 _"You're having wine tonight?" she asked him._

 _"Yeah. Look Babydolly, don't put the peppers in tonight, alright? There still looking pretty fresh and they'll keep for a bit longer yet."_

 _"Sure thing, Daddio."_

 _Xander had her set the table with the good china while he finished making the salad just the way he knew Eliza liked it, and then he put some candlesticks and flowers on the table. He hummed a merry tune while he crafted his glimmery, visual feast._

 _She kept smiling to herself._

 _"What's got your flib in the jib?" he asked, noticing her grins._

 _She looked at him and her face lit up as she giggled. "Nothing."_

 _He returned her smile and said, "Doesn't sound like nothing."_

 _But he let it go._

 _Eliza walked in the door at a quarter till eight. The first thing she did was go to the couch and remove her white sneakers because, no matter how comfortable they were, after spending twelve hours in them, only taking them off could give her feet any relief._

 _She leaned back into the couch cushions and sighed._

 _Xander brought her a glass of chilled wine and pulled one of her feet into his lap and began to knead his fingers into it._

 _"Oooooh, my darling husband," Eliza sang. "That's feels amazing, love."_

 _She closed her eyes and sank deeper into the cushions._

 _She watched her parents from the kitchen, smiling at her dad's velvet tactics. Perhaps it was the fact that she was an only child and was therefore very in-tune to the adults around her, or maybe it was her dad's belief that children shouldn't be cosseted, or it could have been due to the fact that they lived so close to Hollywood, but it was most likely that, now she was going on ten and was finally aware of her ability to slip away, she often watched her parents when they thought they were alone - whatever the case – a combination of it all probably – she knew exactly what her dad was angling for. He was a pretty smooth operator._

 _After five minutes Elizabeth shoved her other foot into his lap. "This one's starting to feel left out, hon."_

 _"We don't want any part of you to feel left out." He started massaging the proffered foot._

 _Eliza issued a very girl-like giggle. "Xan."_

 _"'Ow's it at that ol' 'ospice, luvey?" he asked._

 _"Mmm. Okay. I think I might off that fellow Patel."_

 _"What was he up to today?"_

 _"Oh, just the usual idiocy. You know how I told you last week he was making such an unholy fuss over the trolleys?"_

 _"Yeah. He wanted the old ones put away in storage and it was making all the maintenance workers talk about going on strike."_

 _"Right, well, today he told the poor dears to bring them back out."_

 _"What? Why?"_

 _"Well, apparently he hadn't got it cleared with the right people, and it came from up top that the old ones have to be used till next May."_

 _"Really?"_

 _"Yes," she groaned. "We replace the old gurneys every May. I told him that, Janice told him that, everybody pretty much told him that. Even Eduardo, the head of maintenance knows it, and told him so. But why would he listen to any of us? We've only been there eons longer than him._

 _"I don't know how he got that job! They should have promoted someone from inside the hospital, instead of bringing in some puffed up, pigheaded, know-it-all nobody. He's insufferable, Xan."_

 _She was a little surprised by her mother's harsh language, but this new guy at the hospital, Patel, really had her wound up._

 _"They should have given you the job, Eliza," he told her. She laughed. "It's true. You could do his job loads better than him, I bet."_

 _"Aw, you're a dear for saying it," she said, grinning happily._

 _"You know I mean every word." He released the foot he was working on, leaned over his wife and kissed her._

 _She kissed him back for about thirty seconds but then she pushed him away. She was way too tired and stressed-out for her mind to head in that direction just yet. But Xander wasn't discouraged. He still had some tricks up his sleeve._

 _"What's that delicious smell wafting in from the direction of the kitchen?"_

 _"It's a fabulous concoction of my own invention, Sweetiekins."_

 _By now Luxminder had come out of the kitchen, and she was perched on the armrest watching them. She snorted and said, "I'm surprised you can smell supper over the stench of his stop bath."_

 _"Ha. Ha," was his sarcastic response to his daughter's teasing remark._

 _Her mother chortled a bit and then she moaned and said, "I'm knackered."_

 _"Well I'm peckish, you silly lovebirds," she contributed from the end of the couch._

 _"Oh, you poor starving little darling!" her mother laughed. "Come here, Dollface."_

 _She went and leaned over her mum and got a hug and a kiss._

 _"Did you help Daddy cook?"_

 _She nodded._

 _"You're getting to be such a big girl," her mum cooed at her while she stroked the side of her face and admired her. Her mum and dad both thought she was the most beautiful child they'd ever seen._

 _Then her dad teased her, "I knew when we adopted you that someday you'd turn out right useful."_

 _She and her mum laughed and she said, "Thanks!" while her mom cried, "Xan!"_

 _"Let's eat!" her dad crowed._

 _At the dinner table Elizabeth complimented everything, the food, the fragrant, pink oleanders and the candles, and Alexander made sure that her wineglass stayed full._

 _They asked her about school and she told them about a history project that her teacher had assigned them to complete by Christmas break._

 _"What do you think you want to do it on, Luxminder?" her mum asked her._

 _"Sacagawea."_

 _"Gesundheit."_

 _"Dad."_

 _"Well, that sounds lovely," her mother told her. She'd grown up in England of course and wasn't really certain who Sacagawea was._

 _"I read a book about her this summer and she's fascinating," she told them._

 _Her dad gave her an indulgent smile. "What's so fascinating about her?"_

 _"When she was twelve she was kidnapped during an annual raid that the Hidatsa's made every year on the Shoshone. Then when she was only thirteen, this horrid man named Charbonneau won her when he was gambling and he took her and this other native named Otter Woman for his wives."_

 _"Ew," her mother said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. She mirrored her mum's face and said, "Right?_

 _"Then when she was only about fourteen or fifteen, historians aren't positive, she had her first baby. And then, only a few months later, she helped Lewis and Clark on this really long expedition to reach the west coast. She was really useful to them. When they were starving she gathered plants and herbs for them to eat, and one time when their boat capsized she swam around and gathered their belongings. They couldn't have done it without her. In fact, by all accounts she was much more useful to the silly palefaces, than her rapist husband."_

 _"Was he a rapist?" her dad asked._

 _"He was, Daddy," and then she laughed. "Before he married her, when he lived up north in Montreal, this old woman caught him raping her daughter, so she stabbed him with a canoe awl."_

 _Her dad and mum laughed. "Sounds like he got what he deserved then," Xander said brightly._

 _"But the most interesting thing of all is the controversability over when Sacagawea really died. See, Charbonneau- "_

 _"Controversy," her dad corrected her._

 _"Yes, that's what I meant, Dad. When her husband went off and left her while he went on some fur trading expedition, she supposedly got sick and died, but then decades later these rumors circulated that she'd really escaped and gone with this Comanche man to live up north. It was a controversy, you see. About when she actually died. That's what I'm going to focus on in my report."_

 _"Sounds fascinating," her dad agreed with her. Then he chuckled softly and asked, "So she saved the silly palefaces' hides, eh?"_

 _She nodded and shoved a big pile of her gooey casserole into her mouth._

 _"Don't take such big bites," her mother chided._

 _"So what do you reckon the director will do about this Patel prat, Liza?" her father non-sequitured._

 _She was surprised her dad had reintroduced the subject since, by all appearances, he was hoping to get lucky tonight._

 _Her mum sighed and said, "Who knows?"_

 _"He sounds completely daft."_

 _Her mother shrugged and ran a frustrated hand across her forehead. "Yeah well, eventually our director will cotton-on to that fact."_

 _"I'm not surprised at how thick he is. He flunked out of medical school," her dad related casually._

 _"What?" her mother asked, clearly shocked by her husband's little bombshell._

 _"What?" he asked, feigning innocence._

 _"He did not!" she exclaimed._

 _"He did too," her dad maintained, his light brown eyes sparkling with contained mischief._

 _"How do you know that?" her mother asked, her voice tinged with skepticism._

 _"His ex-wife's sister is a teller at the place where Margo banks," he told her. Then he bobbed his eyebrows up and down a few times while he smirked at her._

 _Eliza's whole face was suddenly overcome with suppressed glee and she emitted a deep chuckle. "Oooh. You always know just what to say to cheer me up, darling," she told him with twinkling eyes._

 _"I thought you'd like that, love," he murmured and leaned in for another kiss. This time she was more relaxed and less unhappy so she let him linger._

 _"Can I have a pet for my birthday?" she asked when they'd finished kissing._

 _"What sort of pet?" her mum asked._

 _"A great pet."_

 _"What sort of pet?" her dad asked._

 _"A unique pet."_

 _"For the hundredth time, Luxminder, we can't get you a baby penguin," her mum told her exasperated._

 _"Not a penguin."_

 _"Then what sort of pet?" her dad pressed._

 _"I want a chicken."_

 _Eliza and Xander looked at each other, her mum looking slightly frustrated, her dad highly amused._

 _"Why on God's green earth do you want a chicken?" Eliza asked._

 _"It could be dead useful, Daddy. If we let it roam loose in the backyard, it'll eat the bad insects in the vegetable garden and its poo will fertilize the soil."_

 _Xander couldn't help laughing. "And if there's an apocalypse like that loon who stands on the corner by the grocery store is always shouting about, and we're starving, we could also eat it."_

 _"We'd never eat her," she told him calmly. "We'd love her."_

 _"I'm not certain I could ever love a chicken, Dolly," her mum said pensively, "no matter how useful it is. Why don't you ever ask for a normal pet? Don't you want a-a…a gerbil or something." Eliza shuddered a bit, saying that. She detested rodents._

 _"You could love a gerbil?" she asked her mom with a knowing, impish grin._

 _"Hasn't it occurred to you, little lady, if we have a chicken roaming around in our backyard, Shere Khan will eat it?" Eliza asked her._

 _Shere Kahn was this humongous tomcat who wandered around their little neighborhood, and he was bigger than an ocelot and twice as wild. His real name was Dulce, and he belonged to a little Hispanic family a few houses down from theirs, but the people who officially owned him and had haphazardly named him, didn't have much interest in trying to civilize him. Despite numerous complaints by various incensed families that he killed the exotic hummingbirds that came to drink from the winding, tangled trumpet vines, and that he overturned metal trashcans, and that he shredded everybody's window screens when he used them to sharpen his claws, the Ecuadorians still gave him a free and unsupervised rein. And, in spite of the rumors that he'd made Billy Foster's pitbull cry, they continued to call him Dulce._

 _"Fine then, can I have a puppy?" she asked._

 _Her father gave her a dark look._

 _"Luxminder." It wasn't quite a groan, but it wasn't exactly a happy sound._

Her memories, all of her memories, weren't like drowsy-morning half-dreams. Her family was as lucid to her as graphite on white paper. Every thread of gray in their hair, every crease when they smiled and frowned, was sown into her skin. The sounds of their voices were sketched over her, and the vinegary scent of her dad's stop bath was inked into her mind like a tattoo.

She realized that tears were falling into the bathwater.

She always cried when she remembered them, that's why she didn't let herself think about them very much. Remembering her past never felt safe – even if Snakeface couldn't read her thoughts. For the most part she just tried to embody her persona, to be Jane Wellington, ignoramus orphan, who was raised in the gutters. She tried not to think in words, or to think about anything.

Her parents and her little sister had died in a car collision a couple of months after her fourteenth birthday, and barely a day had passed, from then until now, when she didn't wish she had been in the car with them.

She sat up and took a few deep breaths, collecting herself. It was a night for happy indulgences, not self-pity.

She ran her hand down the flat plain of her stomach, and then dipped two of her fingers between her legs.

Masturbating wasn't something Luxminder felt the urge to do very often. Especially since she'd come here. She felt way too uncomfortable the majority of the time in this mausoleum of a manor, this embellished tomb. All of the portraits were kept to the communal areas around the mansion, none were placed in bedrooms, or even spare bedrooms, and that was a relief. But she never felt like she had complete privacy. What if somebody _did_ decide to walk into the room without knocking? She would die of mortification if anybody caught her in the act.

She had tried doing this a couple of times in the last four months since coming here, but both times her enjoyment had simply plateaued and she'd rapidly given it up as a lost cause. But tonight, since it was almost her birthday, she wanted to give it another go.

She stretched back and rested her neck on the cool curved corner of the mini-pool, and spread her legs to have better access to the folds of her sex. Gently pulling them together over the sensitive nodule of her clitoris, she used the slick inner-sides of her labia as a shield between the coarser skin of her fingers and the delicate tissue of her body's most pleasure-receptive tip.

She pressed lightly, reserving pressure till later, and began to work the folds of her hood over her clitoris back and forth, and then she switched to circular motions to avoid a numbing repetition. When she read about sex in romance novels she often wondered whether any of the people writing them had ever actually had sex; nobody described this sort of thing very accurately as far as she was concerned.

In spite of the fact that she'd seen so much sex as a result of her ability to hang around unseen and watch random people – sometimes she thought that she'd probably seen as much of it as a porn director, which had eventually imbued her with the clinical detachment of a doctor – her fantasies were as chaste as her intact hymen.

She was in a big bed, and nimble slices of light angled down from high somber windows, flowing through gossamer curtains that fountained down the four sides of the bed, like a gauzy mosquito net. She was wearing an almost-sheer, satin gown, the hem and bodice were trimmed with scalloped lace and it made her feel unhurried and sexy. There was a young man with her. This imaginary lover was quite mutable and she often changed the lines of his shape and the colors of his eyes, hair, and skin depending on her mood, but in essentials he stayed the same. He was handsome and considerate; a gentleman. He never tried to pressure her into anything that might make her uncomfortable. They were as awkward and fumbling as babes in the bed together. But what they lacked in experience and skill, they made up for with passion.

Her make-believe man had no distinctive face, and no name. But he had a rock-hard body. Sinewy, graceful limbs; darker skin than hers tonight, well-polished mahogany that nearly glowed; a full sensuous mouth; long, beautiful, piano-playing fingers that skimmed her shy, expressive breasts and clung hungry to her hips. It was his hand between her legs. He held her so tight - as if his life might depend on how close he could hold her to him without hurting. He kissed her sweet, whispered her real name to her. He always had a deep, sultry voice, and he used his clever lips and tongue to trace sensual paths over the line of her jaw, up around her earlobes, and then he moved down her neck and started exploring the hollow dips above her collarbones. His breath was warm and damp on her amenable flesh.

Perhaps it was that the hot water had burned so much stress out of her otherwise frightened, frigid body, but tonight she was really feeling it.

When this nebulous young man finally brought her to orgasm, she didn't moan, or even gasp, the way the perfect protagonists of smutty romance novels always did. She stopped breathing, curled in on herself. Her legs shuddered and trembled as the intense frissons coursed down her thighs, and they swept upwards as well: engulfing her abdomen, coiling around her shoulders and spiraling down her arms. Then the pleasure frenetically unfurled in her mind, melting away everything that didn't concern pure chaotic ecstasy.

When it was over, when all the rapture had subsided completely, she collapsed and took two deep, juddering breaths. She basked in the afterglow. So much blood had abandoned her extremities, whooshed away to pool around her genitalia, that her toes and fingertips had gone numb. But even more delicious than that, was a tingling, fizzled feeling in her lips and at the end of her tongue.

Would she live long enough to get the chance to ever experience sex? Fall in love? Go on a date? See her brother again? Finish school? Get a job? Get married? Have a baby? She loved babies. Or would Bellatrix LeCrazyLady wind up getting her heart's most fervent desire – well, her heart's second desire - and be allowed to take her behind the manor to slit her throat? As if she'd ever restrain herself to just that. Oh, that insane witch would make her scream until the sun came up. Her love for inflicting pain was surpassed only by her obsession with Lord What's-his-face. And she was frightened of Bellatrix. She was frightened by all of them. (Well, except for Dragon - he was more like a pesky fly to her.)

Luxminder didn't want to die in this den of vipers. But she didn't know what to do anymore. She barely knew how to breathe. Fear fattened up in her; congealed in her blood like tar; cemented her tendons and joints till she felt paralyzed by it; fear had seeped into her marrow, blackening her, and it made her feel so small and unclean. She mostly went through her days in a kind of unthinking trance. She could feel parts of her brain petrifying from lack of use, and the rest of it was liquefying. Sometimes fat, traitorous, polysyllabic words would float up at her, through the rancid pool of stupidity that she'd trained her mind to become. She hated it when this happened, but she seemed to have absolutely no control of it and this terrified her. Was she going crazy?

She remembered Sirius begging her to quit spying, to go back to America. But where could she go? She'd been tempted to go to New York. It would have been easy to find Dax, for her. As easy as lying on a bed, slipping away, and picturing his familiar, piercing face. She and Dax together might have convinced Lenora to let her live with them; it wasn't as if she couldn't afford her. Lenora, that snooty, plastic bitch, hadn't given a damn when the British authorities called and told her that her adopted son's biological sister was an orphan once more, and didn't she want to keep her now? No, of course not. She hadn't wanted the little crippled girl when she was only a year old, baby-faced fresh and artless. At the very least Luxminder could have put herself into the foster system. Lightening didn't strike the same place twice. She could have found a semi-decent place to live until she turned eighteen and then she would have gotten hold of her modest inheritance.

But Dumbledore had kept feeding her big dollops of hope. Hope that Voldemort would soon be captured, wandless and locked away. She'd believed Dumbledore, and she'd desperately wanted to stop Voldemort. How could she not? Back then she had these grandiose dreams of Voldemort being imprisoned, and she'd track down all of his Death Eaters, and then Dumbledore would step forward, unveil her to the public. And she and he could say, "See? We have a Muggle – a _Muggle_ – to thank as our redeemer!" God, she'd been so naïve.

What would happen to her?

She got out of the bath, pulled the plug, and dried herself off.

After she reattached her prostheses she put on a fresh nightgown, threw her used towels into a hamper, and took her candle into the bedroom. According to the clock on her bedside table it was now, officially, her birthday.

The hot bath and the release of her orgasm had drowsied her mind. She fumbled up the side of the gigantic bed, removed her leg again, and burrowed down into the thick, numerous layers of bedclothes.

A ghost of a contented smile haunted the corners of her mouth.

 _Happy birthday, Dax,_ she thought. _Happy birthday…Luxminder._

She went ahead and thought of her real name, as singular as Jane Wellington was generic. After all, it was her birthday. And you only turned eighteen once in your life.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

A quiet voice, a deep voice, a male voice was uttering something unintelligible.

Luxminder cracked her eyes and focused them on the clock next to the bed. It was so blurry that she had to concentrate, to focus them. It wasn't working. She reached over and grabbed her glasses, put them on, and studied the clock. The delicate hands were pointing at the two and the three. 2:15. Am or pm?

The masculine voice was still muttering incomprehensibly. Lights rocketed past her vision - across the room. Who was casting spells at this time of night? And why?

She sat up and looked around the room.

There was a man dressed like a Muggle, one she had never seen before, standing in front of the cold fireplace, wand waving, while he cast spells at the walls.

A chilly draft drew her eye to the open window. She had forgotten to pull the casement shut before she went to sleep, and she foggily took in the broom resting against the wall in the alcove.

Fear, muddled yet quick, was cascading its way down her spine and deluging her stomach.

What was happening? Who was he? Luxminder had never seen him before. However, as she looked at him closer, he somehow changed. But he didn't change at all. It was like she could see two men when she looked at him.

There was a hulking, broad-shouldered man before her. He had a globby belly, pudgy hands, pasty skin, a shiny hairless pate, and thick fleshy jowls that looked like they would jiggle and shake when he spoke. But when she really concentrated on him she could see someone smaller, different, inside the big one. This man had the translucent sheen of a spirit, exactly like Sirius when he had used Polyjuice Potion to accompany her when she made trips to shop, or like when Dumbledore and Snakeface used a Disillusionment Charm or an Invisibility Cloak. But despite his immaterial quality, she could still recognize him.

Right as she registered who stood in the room with her, he finished his spell-casting and turned to look at her. A grin of sheer malice lit his face when he saw her sitting up, her face full of dread, taking him in.

She opened her mouth, drew in as much air as her lungs could hold, and trumpeted a blast of bloodcurdling terror. It was a call for help. But would they come in time to save her?


	20. A Fable

**Posted:** 12/18/15

 **Edited by:** MirandNack

 **A Fable**

 **October 17th** **1998**

 **2:15 am**

She knew, the second she recognized him what he'd come for. And she knew deep inside of her that his pretty young Chinese woman was now dead.

She was surprised by how casually he was accepting all of her screaming. She would have thought he'd have gagged her and tied her up first thing, but he was just smiling as though pleased. He stood there for more than a minute and let her scream her head off - lungs out. She didn't even consider begging, not yet. There wasn't time for that yet. She knew that what she needed was help. The door was locked, her leg was off, and she was a tiny person. A small, helpless… _female._ And he was a man. Big fat man, or slightly smaller Daniel mattered not. His insidious, blood-chilling smile told her everything she needed to know; his eyes were dead and she'd seen that look before. She knew that Kew's departing soul had latched on to his mercy and taken it to be with her in the afterlife, perhaps for the company.

He finally headed toward the bed, and when he swerved to come around the right side of it, she moved to the left. Once again he demonstrated a lack of concern for any aid that might be coming for her as he was walking for her, not running, and he simply laughed at her speedy removal to the other side of the bed.

God, her throat was burning. How much longer could she keep up this level of piercing screaming before her voice died? Where the hell were her 'protectors'?

He slowly climbed up the bed; his heavy-limbed movements were thick and bovine. He wasn't used to maneuvering in this bigger body and it showed.

He was crawling on his hands and knees to her, and she was the little grey mouse and he was the fat white cat with a satisfied, cream-licking grin.

She had no choice; she had to get off the bed.

He started laughing again as he watched her hopping around the bed, trying to get to the door.

She was nimble and balanced on one foot, like a spry kangaroo rat, and when she made it to the door - and started ripping at the handle and banging on it so hard she thought she was breaking bones - she couldn't help turning her head to see where he was. He was just getting lackadaisically off the bed to come after her.

Even while she was prying uselessly at the door handle, she was still screaming as loud as she could but her voice was faltering, aching, losing its momentum.

As she watched him lumbering across the room for her, she decided that she'd better keep flying. Fighting would have to be her last, most desperate resort.

He watched her bounding away from him once more, laughed at her again. She could hear both of his voices in it: the borrowed, deeper one slightly overlapping the real one. The Daniel voice. It was so goddamn creepy those voices; it was the way she imagined that a demon might sound.

She considered heading to the bathroom, locking herself in, but she could see his wand in his hand and knew she'd only succeed in trapping herself for him. When attempting to flee on one leg only, wide open spaces are a must. So she headed toward the opposite end of the room.

"You's quick for a gimp, ent ya?"

As she was leaping away she got an idea. She risked toppling over as she tripped even faster toward the window. She grabbed his broom, fastened her legs around it and positioned it toward the sky. It was her only chance for escape, and she knew she was just as likely to fall and crack her head open like a bloody egg as she was to actually making it someplace safe, but at this point it seemed preferable.

"No ya don't, ya lil' bitch!"

Nothing happened anyway, she had no idea how to make the broom fly, or maybe it was her immunity to magic, and she stood there facing the window for a full twenty seconds before he caught her.

As soon as his beefy hand closed on her she went hysterical. Yelling maniacally, she heaved the broom bristles at his head once, twice, three times, and then he backhanded her. Pain blossomed before her eyes like Catherine wheels and posies, and the only reason she didn't collapse to the floor was because he didn't let her. He had her now, and lifted her like a floppy, boneless ragdoll.

By the time he'd tossed her onto the bed and heaved himself up as well, she'd regained enough of her faculties to start thrashing and screaming again.

He straddled her frail body, pinned her legs under his massive weight, and he languorously unbuckled his belt, slid it slowly out from the loops like a lurid parody of a cabaret dancer, and then he got it around her neck. With one quick motion, he snapped it.

The flat leather noose strangled her screams, suffocated her.

She quit scratching at his arms and brought her hands up to the belt, trying to find purchase beneath it, but only succeeded at digging her nails into her own flesh. Her eyes were bulging, rolling back into her head. Fuzziness crept into her periphery like the salt and pepper of a television channel with no reception, but instead of black and white and grey, the popping crackles came in the cartoon-colors of blue and pink and purple. And then, just when she was going to pass out, just when she _wanted_ to pass out, he loosened it.

Her body betrayed her brain's death wish, and cold, harsh air scraped into her lungs, feeding her great, razor sharp gulps of life-giving oxygen.

Oh god! This was just like the last time. It was a belt around her neck instead of a bathtub full of water, and he was going to stick his disgusting dick into her vagina instead of taking the back door, but what did it matter? Belts, water, vaginas, rectums, it really was all the same. Insane ruthless men, torturing and taking and for what? It was all so, so tragically ironic. She'd gone to Dumbledore to save herself from this and it had all come around full circle.

After everything she'd gone through, after the oceans of grief and loss that she'd swum through against all odds, she couldn't believe it was actually going to end like this. She'd been through so much, risked everything to save herself and her Dax, and now all of her bravery and her cowardice were going down the same toilet in a single, unfair flush.

On the other hand, she was thinking that it was because of her spying. It wasn't right, not a natural thing what she did. She'd used her gift to meddle in things that were none of her business, that weren't even of her world, and now the Powers-That-Might-Be were trying to restore the balance, to once more even the scales of good and evil. No light without the dark, no yin without the yang and all that bullshit. It was why she'd come here to work for a harbinger of death. It was why she was going to be raped again. It had to happen, the cosmos needed to teach her a lesson. The intimacy and the ecstasy of her earlier fantasy from the bath was just that - a fantasy. She was a cautionary tale; a born tragedy.

Even though she was repulsed by the vomit-inducing notion of it, even though there were probably hundreds of other kinds of torture she would take over rape, even though she would bankrupt the strength of every fibre of her being to prevent it happening - none of it mattered. Because she was a weak female who was powerless to prevent it, and he was an immoral, merciless man, who had perhaps convinced himself that deep down all women are really whores, and when they cry and beg they're actually teasing. Playing hard-to-get. Is all just a game to the silly slags.

He was going put his filthy cock inside of her and she'd never heal. Never had healed completely from the last time. He was going to reopen the old wound, and it was going to fester and devour her up from within.

Fairy tales need not apply.

~~~ **}{** ~~~

"Lucius."

It was a breath. His name rode the air, out of her throat, thrown into the dark and swallowed swiftly.

Narcissa thought she heard someone screaming. Was it a dream? A nightmare? She didn't feel scared - alert but confused.

She lay there a few moments listening, her senses sharpened inside the absolute blackness of their bed curtains. She didn't hear anything now. She was so tired. Cissa closed her eyes and started to drift into sleep once more.

She heard it again and her eyes snapped open. It was so distant, but still distinguishable.

"Lucius!"

Narcissa slept with her wand under her pillow these days. She reached beneath her head and felt the solid, reassuring baton of wood immediately. She sat up with it, muttered 'lumos', and then used it to pull back the bed hangings, and she began to rapidly light some of the candles around the room. She only missed once, despite her exhaustion and the late hour, for fear was quickly clearing her mind.

"Lucius!" she yelled again.

He was snoring soundly still.

"LUCIUS!" She started to shake her husband. She was getting more and more scared with each passing second, and so she slapped him. Hard.

Still nothing. He was so ruddy drunk before he came to bed every night.

" _Augementi_!"

A cold stream of water spouted from the tip of her wand and she had to give him a thorough soaking before he stirred.

"Ah!" Lucius cried in surprise as he sat up and wiped the bracing shower from his face. "What the _hell_!"

"Lucius, I hear screaming!"

" _What_?" he said loudly, his voice rampant with confusion and doubt, his wet, dripping face glistening dimly in the candlelight.

They sat there a moment, silently, his grey bloodshot eyes locked with her pale blue ones.

It came again. It was such a faint sound, as though it was coming to them from the other side of a very long tunnel or emerging from the echoey depths of a pensieve, and Narcissa couldn't believe it had even managed to wake her. But despite the distance of the scream it was still such a raw noise, full of fear and…pain.

"Poisson!" Cissa yelled.

It took her two seconds to decide, and then she cast two swift patronuses with very loud messages embedded in them. One for her sister and one for her son.

 **~x~}{~x~**

He had no intention of killing her.

Like any man possessed by grief and rage, Daniel Baddock wasn't thinking clearly. He _had_ taken steps to ensure that he could have his revenge and escape undetected; however, he was simply ignorant about three very critical factors.

The spells he had cast around the room were an insulating magic meant to keep all sound from escaping. If he had spent as much time as the Malfoys watching the Dark Lord experiment on the girl, he would have gathered an inkling of exactly how impervious she was to magic. He might have realized that even her voice couldn't be dammed by it completely.

He'd also used Polyjuice Potion to disguise his appearance. If she didn't know who was assaulting her, she certainly wouldn't be able to finger him. He didn't care whether or not she knew why she was hurt; this wasn't that sort of power trip. It was a plain kind of revenge, meant to punish but not enlighten. He knew he didn't have that sort of power. He couldn't tell her what she'd done, what she'd taken from him, but he just had to make her hurt the way he did.

In addition to the silencing charms, he'd attempted to erect a magical deterring barrier, to keep out anyone that might try to come in unannounced to disturb him. He couldn't imagine why anyone would wander in at this time of night, but it was a contingency that had seemed wise to plan for, just in case.

But, once again, his ignorance wasn't doing him any favors. He'd grown up in a tiny flat in London, raised by a distant, mediocre mother, and he hadn't been bright or focused enough to complete his education. He wasn't a fully qualified wizard. He didn't understand the depths and intricacies of Homespells. He had no idea that behind the plastered and wood paneled walls the very stones, the foundations of the house were capable of recognizing magic, and they were so sentient as to be loyal to blood. Malfoy blood. No spell, no matter how complex, no matter how powerful, not even if it were cast by the Dark Lord himself, could ever bar a Malfoy from entering any room in his or her manor.

But, of all his useless magic, the second thing that worked against him now was time. By his reckoning, the Polyjuice Potion had bought him a little under an hour, and he intended to use every minute of it. He didn't want a simple in and out and then over. He wanted to draw it out. He wanted to listen to her scream, to make her plead. He wanted to taste her tears, to ride her long and hard; he wanted to watch her during the shock, the pain, and her crushing resignation when he sliced into her and she realized that yes, this was actually happening to her. She was being fucked. She hadn't wanted it, had fought with all her pitiful, little-girl strength against it, but she was overpowered, torn open, raped. He needed to prolong the moment and see it happen in her eyes while he was murdering a vital portion of her soul.

And thirdly, by underestimating her value, he didn't understand that it wouldn't have mattered if his whole plan had worked anyway. She was a Muggle. Crippled, dumb, ugly, a freak of nature, a mudblood – not even a proper witch. He, a low-class, pure-blood wizard, couldn't begin to fathom her importance to a man like the Dark Lord. She was spoken of like a circus sideshow among the Snatchers. She was a brief, titillating distraction, the Dark Lord's new plaything. Daniel had no idea that, even were his plan to be carried out to the letter, and he got on his broomstick and flew away, and Jane wasn't discovered until the morning, that the Dark Lord wouldn't stop hunting for her attacker for the rest of His immortal life. For even if Jane was just an ephemeral, shiny new toy - which wasn't how He saw her _at_ _all_ \- she would always be _His_ toy. And on bare, unrelenting principle, _nobody_ broke His toys without His permission.

 **~x~}{~x~**

"Beg!"

"Pleeeaase!"

With a downward rake of his wand, her nightgown was sliced open, and then he ripped off her knickers with it as well.

"PLEEEEASE!" she cried and knew it was useless, but what else is there to do in these moments? Brave people, like the ones in books and movies, might yell, "Fuck you, you sick bastard!" But in real life you just beg. "Please don' be doin' this! Oh, god, please!" she howled, her voice shattering into racking sobs. She moaned it again, "Please."

According to the clock by the bed he still had another forty minutes before the potion wore off.

He got off of her, and pried her legs apart with pathetic ease. Danny positioned himself between them, and wildly drove his fat middle finger into her sex. When she started to scream and scratch at him again, he simply tightened the belt around her neck.

She was _so_ tight. He had no idea how big or little the penis of this borrowed Muggle might be, but he hoped it was as huge as the man. He was already hard as a rock, and he unfastened the thick, green corduroys and pulled it out to see it. Not nearly as big as he thought it would be. Oh, well, it would have to do. She was so small and tight anyway; it would probably feel bigger than a cucumber going in. He glanced down between her legs and then did a double-take. It was so red. He'd never seen a cunt this red. It was as rich and deep red as a rose. He felt an odd urge to taste it, but then he gathered his wits again.

He realized that he was still squeezing the strap into her neck. Damn! He allowed it to slacken, watched her gasping. Didn't want her unconscious.

"Beg!"

"Please," she whispered, her throat too dry and raw to give him more.

He pulled his finger out of her, grabbed one of her little snitch-sized breasts and squeezed it with all of his might.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh hhhhhhh!" She was arching her back and digging her nails into his arm again. But the pain of the pinching, scraping fingers in his arm was intoxicating, made him harder, more eager for the moment when he stabbed into her.

Suddenly he heard a group of frantic voices outside the bedroom door. Bloody hell!

Should he go ahead and finish? They couldn't get in. There was only one wand between them. Where was his wand? He'd dropped it on the bed when he undid his trousers. He immediately snatched it up again and then he stopped to think.

Though under normal circumstances Daniel would never own it, especially to himself, shoddy wand-work was one of the main reasons he'd never completed his education. And he had looked up all the repelling spells in a book a few days ago, practiced them a bit, hadn't bothered testing them at all, and he wasn't totally confident that they were all that solid.

He should get the hell out of here. _Damn_! Why had he lingered over it? _Fuck_! He was livid now. He hadn't got to teach her the lesson.

He refastened his trousers and climbed off the bed, turned around and started swiftly for the broom that lay next to the open window.

Suddenly the door burst open and he turned around.

All of the Malfoys, followed closely by Lestrange, were pouring into the room.

Daniel started casting every hex, jinx, and curse that he could think of at them – the bangs and explosions they caused added to the chaos of the moment – while he backed to the window.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

Narcissa didn't know what to think on entering the room. How in Hades had this happened? The huge man who was firing random, ill-aimed spells at them looked a complete stranger.

She had the wand this time. Lucius had wanted her to give it to him, but she wouldn't do that again. Besides, he reeked like a bottle of scotch and he was swaying on his feet as he'd asked her for it.

Narcissa had instructed Lucius, Bella, and Draco to find Poisson immediately; whatever awaited them inside, they had to get the mudblood and get her to safety. But with all the cascading lights and the splinters of wood showering in every direction from the busting furniture and plaster, everyone except her had immediately run for cover. Together, Lucius and Bella retreated behind an over-turned chaise to the left of her, and Draco dove to the right and used the bed as his bastion.

Narcissa swiftly, easily deflected his curses and was carving an astonishingly rapid path across the room to him.

Daniel couldn't believe how good the bitch was. And she was bloody scaring him. There was something in her eyes that was completely unnerving him. She looked mental.

Narcissa, the closer she came to the intruder, was feeling calmer and calmer. Without any logical reason to connect these events, she still knew: this was to do with the day in the Nook. Whoever this man was - and she sincerely hoped that he was Charles - she was going to make him scream like a pig. Her mind and her arm felt eerily detached from her as she closed in on her quarry.

He was backed up against the edge of the window seat and when he tried to reach down to retrieve his fallen broom she blasted it in half, and he had to stand up and refocus on her again. He got the feeling that she was toying with him. There was a smirk tugging at a corner of her mouth.

He was getting more and more desperate, casting sloppy-handed wand-work at her. But she seemed cooler than her glacial eyes, quite relaxed.

 _Fuck this!_ he thought. "Avada Kedavra!"

Luckily for her, unfortunately for him, this spell was as messy as the previous ones and it merely jagged past her head, fanning back her long blond hair in its slipstream.

"Crucio!"

Her spell met its mark and he was on the ground, writhing, twisting, screaming.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

About thirty seconds after Draco had hurled behind the bed, Jane fell on top of him, and she was practically _naked_! She was beet red, panting, her nightdress was in tatters, she was drenched in sweat, and she smelled, for once, very sweet. Like a flower. She had some sort of leather strap around her neck.

Draco had no idea what the hell he should do for her, so he made to take off the belt. But she cried out, "Don't touch me's!" and tried to beat him away from her with rocky, clenched fists, one of which she managed to knock into his cheek. But she was too worn down with exhaustion, and the closed hand that connected with his face didn't even hurt his adrenaline-soaked body. As soon as he pulled his hands away from her, she gripped one of her tremoring arms around her chest, and with the other convulsing arm she tried to hide her exposed sex. She was so out of it. Her breath heaved raggedly in and out loudly, and her big eyes cast around the room like a trapped, wild animal's. He felt something akin to pity for her, so even though he couldn't seem to stop his eyes from raking rapidly over her flesh, drinking up his first sight of a naked female, Draco reached up to the bed and tugged the enormous blanket down. He laid it over her and then, for the briefest moment her eyes touched his. Perhaps she had seen the sympathy in his eyes, or perhaps it was because he'd preserved her modesty, but when he reached for the belt again, this time she allowed him to remove Daniel's leash.

Her neck was not a pretty sight. A wide, thick weal was coloring pink around it, the edges looked white and pinched, and there were small bleeding gashes above and below the forming bruise where she had clawed at herself each time she had been choked. Draco noticed that one side of her face looked redder than the other and it was sort of puffy too. His mother would have to examine the rest of her for injuries.

Merlin pants! She was naked. Had he had sex with her? The Dark Lord would probably kill them!

"Poisson, did he have sex with you?" Draco asked her.

She didn't answer him. Her eyes still roamed frantically, randomly around the room, unseeing.

"Did he have sex with you!?" he asked again, louder.

Suddenly Draco heard someone screaming in agony. He knew that the man was being punished, and he was sort of shocked when he realized his mother must be the one wielding the Cruciatus Curse on him.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

From behind the chaise, Lucius heard the man cry out the Killing Curse at his wife, and was so enraged that he immediately stood up. But he saw the curse fly by her head and less than a second later the man was on the ground, thrashing in anguish. Thank Merlin.

Bella followed her brother-in-law across the room toward the strange fat man, who was rolling and twitching while he released loud yells of blood-curdling pain. The sound of it crashed wave after delicious wave through her body, warm and tingling it was, and it radiated to her sex.

Lucius noticed how distinctly hungry Bella looked as she gazed at the man on the floor. She was such a strange beast.

"Cissa!" Lucius called to his wife. "Cissa!" He was startled to see that, as she watched the man on the ground, Narcissa's expression mirrored her sister's. "Cissa!" he cried again, and put his hand on her arm.

She seemed to come back to herself at his touch and she relinquished the spell and lifted her wand up. As she turned to look at him, her eyes transformed into something softer and innocent. "Yes?" she inquired lightly.

"Who is he?" Lucius asked them.

Both sisters said that they'd never seen him before.

"Morgana! Poisson!" Narcissa exclaimed, as she realized why they'd come here in the first place.

"She's here," they heard their son calling.

Bellatrix saw Daniel's wand on the floor, picked it up immediately, and used it to tie him up.

Narcissa and Lucius found Draco with Jane behind the bed.

"She's shaking," Draco told his parents as they came to kneel on the floor beside them.

Jane's lips were fringed in purplish blue, and her lower lip was trembling so hard it was almost vibrating.

"She's in shock," Narcissa informed them as she ran a finger lightly over the child's neck. "Is that why you covered her?"

Draco looked up from Jane and glanced at both of his parents as he shook his head. "She… she was… naked."

"What!" Narcissa said loudly. She started to pull the blanket down, to see for herself, but when Jane felt her trying to tug it off she clung to it and started whimpering. Big tears pooled in the inner corners of her eyes and then they dripped down the shallow crevices beneath them and disappeared down the sides of her face.

"Did he rape you, Poisson?" Narcissa asked her.

She shook her head softly and sniffed wetly.

"Are you positive?" Lucius asked.

Her face contorted in misery, stretching and scrunching, and she started to sob quietly while she nodded.

"The Dark Lord," Lucius said simply, bluntly, darkly.

"Should we call him?" Narcissa asked.

All three of the Malfoys' eyes reflected the same dread.

"No!" Jane cried, her voice sounding as if it had been gnawed at by something with sharp, mean teeth. "I's ent wanna see 'im."

"Hush child," Lucius told her roughly. "When we feel it necessary to adhere to your whims, we'll consult you."

Draco thought his dad was being a little harsh with her. Especially considering what she'd probably just gone through. But he kept his peace.

"He'll find out now or later, either way," Narcissa reasoned, too scared to try and delay the inevitable. "Do you think he'll be angrier if we don't inform him this instant?"

"Please!" Jane moaned again. She opened her eyes and looked at them. "Get Mr. Snape. I's want Mr. Snape." Then she started to cough roughly.

"Severus," Lucius said. He turned hopeful eyes at his wife. "He said to call him if she was ever injured."

Narcissa nodded. "He'll know what to do. Get him, Lucius. Draco, go with your auntie to take that animal to the cellar. I'm going to examine Poisson. We need to ascertain all of her injuries. And I think I should see whether her hymen is still intact, so make you sure you knock before you come into the room."

"Her hymen," Lucius repeated in shock. "She told us he didn't rape her."

"Well, we need to be sure before we call him," Narcissa stated matter-of-factly. After all, she'd had her first taste of this sort of shame only a month ago. She now knew exactly why Jane might feel a need to lie to them about what had happened.

And now, no thanks to Jane, Narcissa would no longer be able to keep what had nearly happened to _her_ a secret. The whole story was going to come out to the Dark Lord, and, more than likely, his other servants.

"But she said he didn't!" Lucius spat at Cissa, his terror too big to bear so he had to flip it to anger. "He can't have done it!"

Narcissa lifted one of her eyebrows and appraised him steadily, silently. If the assaulter pricked her, he'd pricked her. What did Lucius expect her to do about it? She couldn't re-grow Jane's hymen. Well, with magic she maybe could, but with Jane magic was tragically never an option.

"He'll kill us," Lucius said in dead hopeless way.

Jane's hand shot out from under the blanket, and she grabbed at Narcissa's arm. "No," Jane groaned. "Won't- " cough, cough.

"Shh," Narcissa shushed her, gently prying Jane's hand off of her arm. "Rest now, Poisson. Lucius, Draco, help me put her on the bed, then get Severus."

Lucius and Draco tried to get her up, but Jane was getting too frantic about her nudity and she started to wail hoarsely and bang her fists on their arms and snap her maw at them.

Lucius, who was still drunk and more than a little frazzled by everything, finally lost his temper with her and grabbed her by her hair and growled, "Stop it, you stupid mongrel! We don't care what you look like nak- Ow!" A slice of fire had briefly run down the arm that he was using to grip Jane with so that he was forced to release her.

He looked at Narcissa. She pointed over his shoulder and Lucius turned around and saw Bellatrix pointing the intruder's wand at him. She waved her index finger and 'tsk'-ed at him a few times. Her whole face was effulgent with delight. While the Malfoys were dealing with Jane, Bella had cast a silencing charm on the burly bastard and tortured him. She was high and breathless and felt a surge of generosity toward Jane.

"Now, now, my dearest brother," she rebuked him cheerfully, "we mustn't hurt our little charge. No matter how badly she deserves it. Besides, I think she'll pass out if she has any more pain. Trust me," she said with a wink and a smirk. "I can always tell."

Bella's chocolate eyes were shining brilliantly and her heavy brown hair fell about her shoulders and waist in loose curls and waves. Her skin shone magnificently with exultation, and her happiness had somehow tamed years from her face. All of them, as they looked her over, couldn't help noticing that she was sort of beautiful again. Lucius had more opportunities than his wife and son to observe his sister-in-law while she inflicted pain on the hapless – any excuse would suffice, be it flimsier than an undergarment – and he knew that when she was in any position to actuate her sadistic whims, Bella glowed.

The Malfoys saw the intruder magically bound in the air behind Bella. He was still conscious, and his watery brown eyes were squinted at Jane with hatred. His doughy mouth was shutting and opening while his tongue worked over his teeth and lips.

"Did he tell you who he is or why he came?" Lucius asked his sister.

"I haven't got 'round to asking him yet," she panted. "All in good time.

"We should call our master," she told them, and started to raise the sleeve of her nightgown.

"Not yet!" Lucius called loudly, while Cissa cried, "Wait!"

Bella bestowed a confused look on them. "He needs to know what's happened!"

"Of course he does," Lucius agreed in a placating tone, "but we're going to get Severus first, and Narcissa's going to examine Jane to be sure he didn't…compromise her hymen."

"What?!" Bellatrix exclaimed. "What?!" she repeated. "Did you _fuck_ her?!" she shouted at the suspended man. Bella waved the usurped wand at him and he began to writhe, his loose, pasty flesh jiggling. She released the spell, and he hung limp and spent.

"Just take him to the cellar and lock him in, Bella," Narcissa commanded her imperially. "Once I have completed my assessment of her injuries and we've consulted Severus, we will call the Dark Lord."

Lucius was pleased that his wife was taking charge because he was dizzy and exhausted and felt utterly incapable of rational thinking. How had this happened? Why hadn't his protection spells worked? When had he last renewed them? He couldn't remember, but an icy ball of fear in his stomach was indicating to him that he may have been remiss in refreshing them as frequently and thoroughly as he should have done. Was this his fault? And, if so, what would the consequences of his negligence be to him and his family?


	21. Severus

**Posted:** 12/19/15

 **Beta: MirandNack**

 **A/N:** **A big shout out to Toraach, my best, new, and favorite Polish reviewer! And of course, once again, to Alice Helena! Reviews are the fuel for my contrary muse. Feed the muse, get more story! A million thank you's.**

 **Severus**

Severus was brought out of his vigilant doze by the voice of Lucius Malfoy. As he opened his eyes they were immediately drawn to the glowing form of Malfoy's wolverine patronus.

"The mudblood's been attacked, Severus. Please come to the manor as soon as you are able to advise us."

The briefness of this message only accelerated the donning of his black robes and the running of a comb through his oily locks.

His boots resounding off the marble tiles, he swiftly passed through the antechamber that separated his private living quarters from his headmaster study. As soon as he entered the cluttered, opulent room, all the portraits of his predecessors roused in their frames, sat up, and bestowed him with expectant looks. Severus sought Dumbledore and as soon as his onyx eyes found the hyacinth blues he said, "Jane's been attacked."

Dumbledore's eyebrows knitted as he asked, "What's happened to her Severus?"

"I don't know anything yet, Dumbledore."

He went to the wide fireplace, used his wand to rekindle the dying fire, and reached for the vase of floo powder that sat on the mantle. "Lucius has just sent a message informing me of it, and he requested my assistance."

"The Dark Lord will probably kill them this time, Severus," Phineas Black contributed.

Severus threw a pinch of the jade dust into the fire, stepped into licking, emerald warmth and told them, "Not if I can prevent it. Malfoy Manor, east wing, third floor, sitting room!"

After the dizzy-inducing spin had delivered him to his destination, Severus took two careful strides out of the receiving fireplace and he felt Lucius's steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Lucius," he told him. He was still for a moment while he swallowed a few times against the nausea that never failed to engulf him after flooing. This means of transport was almost as intolerable as flying on a broom.

"Thank you for coming," Lucius said. Thick vapors of alcohol poured over him as he was greeted.

After a few bracing in-breaths, Severus started for Jane's room and charged Lucius – who followed in his wake – for the essentials.

"Narcissa woke me."

"How long ago?"

Lucius hesitated before he replied, "It must have been at least thirty minutes ago. She told me that she heard screaming and, as we listened for a few moments, I heard it as well. It sounded distant and faint. I honestly can not believe it woke her. We rushed to the mudblood's door and waited for Draco and Bella to join us, which they both did momentarily. It was probably less than three minutes before Bella came hurrying from whichever part of the manor she's sleeping in these days.

"We heard a scream again but, though we only stood outside the door, the sound was still muffled. The attacker must have cast some silencing spells around the walls to stifle all noises. Once we were all assembled, we entered the room. Spells abounded. The man we found inside was desperately attempting to stave us off by hurling every dark spell he knew. Luckily, my wife's dueling capabilities are almost a match for her sister's," Lucius related, his voice pregnant with pride. "She dispatched him within a few minutes."

"Who attacked her and what damage has she suffered?" Severus asked.

"We don't know yet. We've never seen him before, but it's only a matter of time before we get to the bottom of this. Bellatrix retrieved his wand and she has him now in the cellar. If he used Polyjuice Potion it's probably worn off at this point, but Bella hasn't come back yet."

The old friends shared a look that left any need for words unnecessary. Lestrange had been deprived of her favorite pastime for too long, and in the dark depths of the manor, she was now over-brimming with her fix.

"Why do you suspect the use of Polyjuice Potion?" Severus asked incisively.

They were outside of Jane's room now. Severus reached for the curved handle but Lucius stopped him. "Wait. Narcissa decided to examine her and instructed me to knock before entering," he told Severus as he rapped his knuckles against the burnished wood a couple of times.

"Enter!" they heard Narcissa call from within.

 **~x~}{~x~**

After her family had departed, Lucius taking her wand to summon Severus with it, Narcissa had helped Jane into the bed.

Jane may have been ferociously opposed to allowing any wizard to see her unclothed, but she possessed not a single qualm in permitting Narcissa to peruse her naked body as she lay on the bed shivering.

"I's cold," she whispered roughly. Jane was intermittently crying, going limp for a bit when her physical and mental weariness overtook her, then she roused again and started to whine softly about the cold.

"I know, Poisson," Narcissa replied, offering lukewarm, perfunctory comfort. "Just let me look you over, child. Where does it hurt?"

Narcissa was running her hands over Jane's body, trying to feel out any fractures in her arms, legs, and ribs – all the while, doing her best not to look at her stubbed leg. Her eyes came perilously close to skimming it a couple of times, and she shuddered with revulsion. When her hand meandered quite close to the underside of her left breast, Jane flinched with pain and began to cry hoarsely again.

"Is this tender?" Narcissa asked, and Jane tried to nod and confirm, but was forced to reply instead, as her entire neck was quickly forming into one enormous, tubular bruise.

Narcissa noted that her small breast did appear inflamed and realized that the assailant must have clutched it very harshly at some point. Narcissa had Jane roll over for a few moments while she concluded the manual examination on her back and spine. Thank Morgana that, except the shallow scrapes on her neck, Jane wasn't bleeding.

In addition to her neck, face, and breast, Narcissa also discovered that Jane's left wrist was swelling and paining her. "Did he twist your wrist, Poisson?"

Jane told her no, and that she didn't know how it had gotten injured. Her whole body was suffused with adrenaline, and while this served to offer a slight numbing of her aches, it had also dried out her mouth, and she kept asking Narcissa for some water.

"In a minute, Poisson," she told her. She wanted to look between her legs first. Well, she didn't _want_ to, anymore than she had wanted to touch one single bit of Jane's anatomy or to see her undressed, but it needed to be done.

Jane was still when Narcissa started to part her legs, but she revived when she felt the intrusion and started to sob and try to push her away again while she issued her raucous protests.

"Shh," Cissa hushed her.

But Jane didn't seem able to calm herself. "Please, Mrs. Malfoy. 'E's ent doin' it. I's telled you's, 'e ent."

Narcissa crawled upward toward her head and began stroking the side of her face that was unhurt. "Shh, Poisson, it's alright," she told her soothingly. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. I just need to see for myself. The Dark Lord will want to know for certain, Poisson. Shh," she gentled her, and finally succeeded in coaxing her into a calmer state.

When she returned to Jane's waist and pushed at her legs, Jane reluctantly allowed her to open them by slow degrees. When Narcissa finally had them enough apart to see the innards of her vulva, a hot sluice of molasses-slow trepidation purled through Cissa's chest and belly when she saw that it was all coated with blood. But as she leaned in closer to find the source of all the bleeding, she realized it was just the natural color of the child's sex – a deep blood-red color exactly like that of her plump lips. It was odd. _Sort of pretty_ , Narcissa thought for a moment. Then she mentally shook herself, disturbed by such a peregrine idea. She forgot the random thought as soon she located the hymen, made a thorough perusal and found no tears in the delicate tissue. Not a drop of blood.

A painful burden that she was not even conscious of dissolved with an effluent release from within. The Malfoys might live to see another day just yet.

With a lighter heart Narcissa threaded a clean nightdress over Jane's head and arms, held a cool drink to her lips while she sated her parched mouth, arranged the pillows and blankets around her for better ease, and cleaned and applied plasters to the shallow scrapes on her neck.

Right when she decided to check the lavatory for some of the Muggle medisinine for the pain, Narcissa heard a sound of entreaty at the door.

"Enter!"

 **~x~}{~x~**

The room looked like a demolished battlefield. Piles of splintered wood and plaster littered the floor, paintings had been knocked from the walls and now lay overturned in disorder, holes rimmed with black had been blasted in the large rug that lay the middle of the room, and cottony viscera were pouring out of several rips in the expensively upholstered furniture.

Severus took this all in as he walked to the bed where the invalid was resting. Jane looked terrible. She was sweating still and looked febrile. He saw that one side of her face was puffed and bluing, and her lips trembled violently. At their approach her eyes cracked and clasped Severus. Immediately she reached out to him. Severus took hold of her quivering hand without hesitating. He knew that to offer uninhibited affection to the Muggle was to compromise his charade, but with Jane, unexpectedly, Severus was taking risks.

Potter was gone. His clandestinely-appointed, painfully average godson, and the replica of his schoolboy arch-nemesis was out of his reach now. But Jane - special, baffling Jane - was desperate and perhaps dying, and Severus was exhausted. Wherever this would end, no one could know. Scryers non-pending, Severus knew his end loomed near. Jane's unexpected presence, her existence, was calling to him inextricably, like a siren. It seemed that Lily hovered near to him in Jane's company and Severus wanted to show the Malfoys that even the second-in-command could spare some much needed mercy for a non-magical.

"Where does it hurt, Jane?"

"All over," she informed him.

"I'll get the paracetamol."

"No! The chemist, please. Get's somefink strong, Mr. Snape," she pleaded with a threadbare voice.

Severus gave her one, promising nod. "Do you need the hospital? Be honest Jane."

She began to issue the customary shake of her head, but then winced. Her ravaged neck was temporarily out of commission. "No," she whispered.

The Malfoys hovered by them, raptly observing this intense exchange.

Severus brought his pale hand to Jane's cheek and, bringing her heavily contrasted olive one to hold it in place, he felt her nuzzling into it. She sighed and Severus stiffened as she breathed, "Sirius." Involuntarily he retracted his hand, her eyes fluttered open, and then she went slack. It was sobering for him to understand that Jane still cherished the memory of a man that he had, always it seemed, reviled.

So lightly she didn't stir, Severus caressed a finger over her scrawny neck, intimately tracing the developing bruise. It was already a mangled mess, and he mentally shuddered to imagine how much worse it would look in the morning. He carefully ran his fingertip over the red, snaking vines where the veins had burst.

He turned to the Malfoys, who were somehow managing to look both haughty and contrite.

"What happened here?"

Narcissa went around him and picked up a long leather strap from the night table. "It was made with this."

Severus took the belt and gingerly held it up to look at it. He didn't try to disguise his disgust as he scoured his eyes across it, and then he rolled it up and stowed it in his pocket. "I think it would be for the best if I explain this to our master."

"Yes, I agree," Lucius was swift to agree.

"What injuries has she sustained?" he asked Narcissa. Deciding whether or not to take her to the hospital was the most pressing consideration.

"He must have struck It on the face, as you can see. He used a leather strap on Its neck, to strangle It. I don't know for how long or how many times. It's drifting in and out of consciousness, but nothing It's said has given me reason to worry that It's suffered damage from any prolonged deprivation of blood to the brain. There's also…" Narcissa's pale cheeks blossomed with blood as she said, "One of Its breast is red and bruising as well. He must have squeezed it quite hard at some point."

"Her breast!" he exclaimed.

"He had It mostly undressed when we interrupted him," she told him calmly.

"Did he rape her?" Severus wanted to know.

"He probably intended to. But he didn't."

"Are you positive?"

"I just saw Its hymen for myself. It's whole still."

The revelation that Jane was disrobed by her attacker added a new dimension of malice to this event. Before he could question Narcissa about this development any further, she finished her delineation of Jane's injuries.

"And Its left wrist is a little swollen as well, but It was able to move it when I asked It to, so I doubt it's broken. Just sprained. That may have happened when It fell off the bed."

Severus turned his burning eyes back to the little person lying spent on the bed. Under normal circumstances he would prescribe a hospital visit without delay. But he knew that sending her there would be like signing the Malfoys' death warrant. As long as there was a chance of a recovery unassisted by hands-on Muggle intervention, Severus was disposed to keep her here. The only way the Malfoys might be able to make amends to their master now, would be through nursing her back to health.

Severus pulled back the blanket and began to probe his fingers gently into her soft abdomen. Jane revived enough to see that it was only him touching her, and she remained quiet while he completed the inspection.

"Did he punch you anywhere, Jane?" Severus asked her.

"'Ere," she whispered through dry lips, and she waved her uninjured hand vaguely over the side of her swollen face.

"Do you think we should take It to the hospital, Severus?" Narcissa asked him, the hard edge of the question underpinned with fear.

"For now, no. But if she complains excessively of pain, or if you observe any setbacks in her recovery, inform me straight away, Narcissa."

Once Severus knew that she was going to make it through the night, the next order of business was getting to the 'whys'.

"How do you think this came to happen? Why was she assaulted?"

He watched Narcissa and Lucius – so composed and synchronized – communicating with each other with naught but their eyes. The exchange was brief but heavy, and apparently Lucius was the loser – or perhaps the winner, Severus wasn't sure – for he went to one the armchairs that was bleeding its stuffing and sat down in it.

Narcissa stepped toward him and began to lace her fingers through her hair. Severus had never witnessed this amount of discomposure in her as he watched her fidget.

"It was about a month ago now, Severus," she began.

Cissa attempted to delve into his bottomless eyes as she told him everything but, as usual, she rapidly crashed into the hard wall of them.

Severus watched her as she told him about the events in the Nook. Her sharp angular face betrayed her emotions, animating her in new, supple ways. Her light eyebrows shifted to lows and heights that Severus had never imagined were possible on her sculptured face as she tersely and susceptibly related their anger, their fear and helplessness. Observing Narcissa's expressive, emotional little story had transfixed him.

"It wasn't until Quirke began to raise my skirts with his wand," she confessed, cheeks flushed, eyes lowered, "that It decided to intervene."

This little revelation shook Severus out of his stupor.

"Intervene," he stated. It was a query that had no expectancy.

"It spooked them. Or something," was all she revealed. Her pale eyes were bewildered, with a tincture of defiance.

"How?"

"We don't know." She held his eyes with a scathing look to put her sister's to shame. "It would never tell us. It…" And then she lowered her voice rather ominously, as though what she was saying was too indecent to be spoken at full volume. "Severus, It just knew things. Secrets. Obviously It has spied on them and knew what they were ashamed of. The look in Quirke and Baddock's eyes when It spoke to them…they were terrified of It, Severus."

Severus soaked up this information with unfaltering calm. "I see." He didn't actually see. Not quite.

Even five years ago Severus should never have had the inclination or enough authority to speak to Narcissa as he did now. If his position beside the Dark Lord wasn't so secure he would not feel comfortable asking, "So, you are saying that Jane stopped these… jackals from what was heading in the direction of rape. Yet you still call him 'he' and her 'It'?"

Narcissa barely flinched. "He's a Pureblood." Then, her eyes narrowing slightly, she practically whispered, "It's a cockroach."

Severus bore into her adamant eyes for a half minute before she broke the intense, searching look.

"Have you called the Dark Lord?" he asked.

As a shake of her head indicated a negative, another knock on the door sounded.

"Come in," Severus called, his eyes still on Narcissa.

Draco opened the door and joined them. His hands were in the pockets of his pajama trousers and his shoulders drooped - he looked positively haggard. His face was pinched and ashy with stress and he was staring at Jane's unconscious form with fear and loathing.

"Good…night, Professor," he greeted Severus absently, his eyes on the bed. He turned to his mother. "It's Baddock."

Severus expected Lucius to join them, but saw that he was passed out; his blonde head slumped over the back of his seat.

"Is she… Did he… How did she…check out, Mother?" he asked delicately.

Hastening to give her son some hope, Narcissa told him, "He did not succeed in raping her."

"Where's your auntie?" Severus asked.

Draco looked at him with raised eyebrows. Pretending he was holding a wand, he made some specific wrist movements and succinctly explained with a toneless, "Crucio."

"Lucius!" Severus called.

Nothing would infuriate the Dark Lord more than if he arrived to find the patriarch of the family snoozing.

Lucius didn't stir.

Now Narcissa's consternation was pronounced as she went to his side and began to call his name and shake him. He murmured a bit and then tried to roll to his side and curl up in a more comfortable position.

For Merlin's sake, his world might be ending and he just wanted to nap through it.

"I'm sorry," Narcissa apologized to Severus, clearly ashamed of his behavior. "He was having trouble sleeping earlier so I gave him some Somniferus to help," she lied quietly. Everybody present knew she was lying, and she probably knew that Severus knew, but this had always been the way of the Malfoys. Appearances preserved at any cost.

Finally, just when Cissa feared she'd have to douse him with cold water _again_ , he regained wakefulness and stood up, looking around blearily.

His contempt for his old friend etched in every line of his face, Severus said, "I'm going to the chemist now. Jane needs some stronger medicine to help manage her pain. I need you… or perhaps two of you to go to the cellar and pry Bellatrix away from her prey. The Dark Lord will not be at all pleased if he finds Baddock too badly damaged when he arrives. He will want to…question him."

The confusion clearing to a degree upon this announcement, Lucius gave him a sloppy, half-drunk nod.

"Narcissa, I believe I'll need your wand," Lucius said, crossing the room to his wife's side.

"I gave it to you already. Remember? To send Severus the message."

Severus sighed wearily. This wouldn't do, not at all.

"I will go with you, on second thought," Severus swiftly decided. "Narcissa, perhaps _you_ had better come with me, or even you, Draco."

"I am perfectly capable-" Lucius began.

"You," Severus cut in softly, caustically, "are perfectly drunk, Malfoy. And if you have any Sobriscendia about the manor I council you to drink some before I summon our master." Briefly sweeping Lucius with grave and supercilious eyes, he then asked, "How did Baddock gain access to this room? Why didn't intruder-repelling charms around the windows… _repel_ him? Or at least alert you three to the fact that a revenge-intent psychopath was lurking in here?"

"I don't know why!" Lucius yelled. "I cast some spells around the door!" He punctuated his remarks with some wild motions, waving his entire arms at the door and window and even at the Muggle on the bed, as he continued, "Perhaps it's because that…that little freak is impervious to magic! Or has it occurred to you that Baddock might have some surprisingly advanced powers!?"

"Baddock is a complete imbecile who could not even matriculate into our ranks, Lucius," Severus impugned quietly. His own blithe stance and tone were perfectly calculated to make Lucius' unhinged rants and gestures seem all the more buffoonish. "I was his professor at Hogwarts. He was an idiot. A Hufflepuff idiot."

"Well, then perhaps it's because that… _thing_ is too abnormal!" the gesticulator rejoined.

"These pathetic extenuations do not suit you, Malfoy," Severus told him with careful conviction. "Now I suggest you find your Sobriscendia, and work out what you will say to our master when he arrives. I also advise you to drop the self-righteous façade. At least for the time being."

Severus headed for the door and called back, "Narcissa, lend Draco your wand while he accompanies me to pay the attacker and his auntie a visit. And be quick about it."

Without waiting for a response Severus turned and swept from the room, his long black robe billowing out behind him.


	22. The Ash in the Antipodes

**Posted:** 12/24/15

 **Thanks to the few people who have gifted me with a review. It makes me indescribably joyful. (Any and all Brit-picking is welcome! said the sadly ignorant American.) Happy Christmas Eve!**

* * *

 **The Ash in the Antipodes**

With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.

-C.S. Lewis _A Grief Observed_

 **19** **th** **July, 1995**

The Headmaster of Hogwarts was worried.

Almost two months ago one of the darkest wizards to ever have lived had regained his body and the full use of his terrible powers. This alone was a very bad thing, but to make this sad matter even worse the Minister for Magic and almost every member of the wizarding government refused to acknowledge the truth of this fact. Albus Dumbledore was doing everything in his power to thwart Voldemort; attempting to figure out who all of his followers were, establish who he was next planning to recruit or coerce into helping him, and somehow gain covert access to all of his other diabolical plans in general.

As soon as Harry Potter told him of Voldemort's rebirth in the cemetery, Dumbledore had contacted the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix, people he trusted who trusted him in return. He was desperate to warn as many people in the magical community as possible that Voldemort was back and their lives were in mortal peril once more. It was slow work. Between the Ministry's adamant denial of Voldemort's return, and the Daily Prophet making him out to be senile, he had yet to make much headway.

But on this rainy night Dumbledore was sitting at his desk contemplating three well-read pieces of paper that, while they directly related to his problems with the insane dark wizard who was currently liberated and undoubtedly scheming, seemed altogether a completely different matter.

Last week a man who worked undercover in the Muggle post office in London had redirected a letter addressed to Dumbledore and sent it to Hogwarts via owl. It certainly wasn't the first time he had received a letter from a Muggle in this roundabout fashion. In fact, Harry Potter's own aunt, a Petunia Dursley nee Evans, had managed to put a letter in his hands in this way some thirty years previously. And over the years of his appointment as Headmaster of Hogwarts, other children, envious siblings of his Muggle-born pupils in the main, had written him similar messages. The contents of this letter, however, couldn't have surprised him more if Voldemort had unfurled himself from the envelope.

While he absently stirred his tea, Dumbledore pushed his spectacles further up his long thin nose and perused, for the umpteenth time, one of the pages that contained an entire transcript of a private conversation he had conducted with his portraits, in this very office, ten days ago. The script offered up by this paper struck him forcefully in its accuracy. It was verbatim. He had an excellent memory and obviously the person who had written it did too.

He set aside this page and picked up another, equally worn piece of paper. He read the entire letter, again:

 _Professor Dumbledore,_

 _You don't know me. My name is Luxminder O. I'm fourteen years old and I'm a Muggle._

 _The reason I know who you are is because I was born with the unusual ability to leave my corporeal body and float around unseen and, if I like, watch people. I've been watching you for a while now. I've heard you talking about Lord Voldamorte and his plans to conquer the world. I want to help you by spying on him for you._

 _But the main reason I'm writing to you is because I need some help of my own._

 _A year and a half ago I relocated to England with my mum and dad from America, because my grandma was ill and we had to come here and care for her. About a year after we arrived, my parents and my little sister, Roxander, were in a fatal car accident. Then my grandmother died from cancer six weeks later._

 _These people that I'm living with are distant, distant relations of my mum's, and they're just using me for free room and board and slave labor! Whenever I'm home I have to clean the house, by myself, and I spend most of my free time taking care of their young children. I never get to do my school work and my grades are certainly suffering for it. They make me cook dinner for them every night and I just can't take this anymore!_

 _I wouldn't mind doing chores and helping out with their kids. I always willingly helped my parents as much as I could, and I loved taking care of Roxie. She was born when I was eleven, so she was more like a daughter to me than a sibling. I used to spend hours playing with her, reading and singing to her and such._

 _But this isn't like that. They don't care about me or my well-being. We're not working together as a team to make the household run smoothly. They don't even use my name when they talk to me! I'm a serious cipher. A non-entity._

 _The man that lives here, I can't really bring myself to refer to him as my foster dad or a even a third cousin, is a sadistic pervert. In addition to random acts of cruelty, he makes me watch dirty movies on the television with him at night, after his wife has gone to work and I've put his kids to bed. I don't really want to describe all the disgusting things he makes me do to him. I'm sure a person as clever as I know you to be, has an imagination that's well up to filling in these sordid blanks._

 _I know that I'm young, and a muggel, and a girl, although you've never struck me as a sexist type, and that's one of the reasons that I chose you. God, it's so late and I'm exhausted. I barely know what I'm writing. I'm begging you to help me and give me a chance to help you. I know that I have the capacity to make a genuine difference in this war. Please, consider this petition and give me a chance. You won't regret it._

 _Thank you._

 _Luxminder O_

 _P.S. I've enclosed a copy of a conversation I listened to you having with your portraits so you'll know I'm not trying to blow smoke up your… robes._

Once the shock of its contents had worn off, which wasn't the work of a moment, Dumbledore had reread her letter over and over until it was beginning to tear at the creases. Certain words and phrases seemed to stand out to him, such as: "corporeal", "I'm completely on my own", "slave labor", "sordid blanks", "sexist type", "one of the reasons that I chose you", and "capacity to make a genuine difference". He was also strongly struck by the desperation with which the letter was infused.

A man of Dumbledore's age and experience understood that no matter how long you've lived, life will never stop surprising you. He also didn't believe in coincidence. But this... The contents of this letter were so unprecedented that he felt frozen in indecision whenever he contemplated it.

He set the papers aside and brought his middle and index fingers to his temples and began massaging them with slow gentle circles, trying to increase the blood flow to his brain. He wasn't sure what to do now.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

 **19th September, 1995**

Dumbledore cast a Disillusionment Charm over himself before he Apparated to the address that the Muggle had written on her envelope, and he found himself at the end of a close. He was a bit confused at first, because there were two brick houses facing the street, each had been divided into four separate flats, and her house was down a narrow, bending, dirt road that led behind them. Dumbledore assumed she would live in one of these sub-flats, but after studying the numbers he noticed the two-tracked path leading to the rear of the spacious property and decided it bore investigation. The house he came to in the back had the proper number that he was searching for, and it was much bigger than the preceding two. But it also presented an odd picture to him, and it took him a moment to decide what was peculiar about it. For although the house and the yard surrounding it retained an impression of meticulous care – sturdy and beautiful woodworking for the shutters and porch, large flower beds and meandering stone walkways – there was a markedly dilapidated feel to it as well; overgrown grass, weeds, and a coating of last year's leaves among the dried out flowerbeds, chipping paint, a birdfeeder that dangled from its posts askew, a broken wind chime lying on the porch which nobody had bothered to re-hang. Dumbledore thought that if he'd come upon this place a mere year ago, he would have found it picturesque.

Doubts about what he was planning to do this day had been effectively quashed, as Dumbledore let himself into the house without knocking or announcing his presence in any way. It was the epitome of rude, but more than even his eschewed basic decency was that he was abusing his power. Dumbledore had invested inordinate amounts of time pondering what he was now doing, and concluded this was the cleanest, quickest, and almost only way to achieve his end. He had to be sure that the young person who had written him the desperate letter was really in an unlivable position before he could justify interfering. Dumbledore could have come in waving his wand around, dispensing Veritaserum – which would all have been just as unethical and more illegal as what he was now doing – but he was simply going to stand around in the periphery, invisible, and observe. It was the most unobtrusive method to see what Ms. O's home life really entailed, and if it was all much milder and less…perverse than she claimed in her letter, he could simply leave. No traces of magic left behind, no memory charms needed at the end of the day - no adolescent tantrums to deal with or lies to sort through.

The inside of the house, Dumbledore found, was like an exaggeration of the outside. As he walked around he noticed remnants of splendor, such as lavishly carved woodwork, spacious, airy rooms well-lit with large French windows. He walked across hardwood floors that were unpolished and scuffed, observed a hefty dining table littered with rubbish, including a dirty nappy, and one of its matching chairs, piled high with disorganized junk, had been pushed to the side of the room because its arm had come loose and was sagging precariously to the side.

Dumbledore heard thumping noises above him and the sound of a young child crying, then the strident voice of a remonstrating woman.

He continued his perusal of the downstairs while he listened to the fussing and squalling noises from the second floor.

The walls were rather odd too. In addition to the crayon scribbles and holes in the plaster, there were discolored patches all around the living room and the hallways. Each rectangle and square of fresher and brighter paint had a small hole at the center top, and he easily surmised that frames had hung in them until recently and had all, for some reason, been taken down. He wondered why they'd been removed and not replaced with updated photographs or artwork. It was the same throughout the first floor. He looked over gorgeous bookshelves, half-filled with books and covered in dust, ruined furniture that showed signs of having been well cared for in the near past. It was a mystery. It was as if this home had once belonged to meticulous, appearance-conscious people, and then been overrun by tenants who preferred squalor.

Dumbledore hoped that the letter-writer would be home soon. He assumed she was still in school and was eager to see what she looked like. He knew there was a chance she could be upstairs, and decided that if she didn't appear soon he would make his way up there and look for her. But within fifteen minutes he heard the front door open and close. He was standing in what would have been a lovely sunroom, save the broken furniture, ripped window screens and the plants that had sadly browned and wizened with neglect, and made his way to the living room to get his first glimpse of her.

But then Dumbledore was disappointed when he saw who had come in, for she looked like a first year student of Hogwarts, rather than a third or fourth year. Or was this Ms. O? Dumbledore realized that she might have added to her age, to make herself seem older and more mature. Dumbledore didn't know what he would do if she was really only a ten or eleven year old. _How much difference will it make_? He wondered.

She just stood there in the small alcove of the foyer, glaring into the living room with narrowed eyes. The little girl did seem very grown up, he thought, when he saw her taking in the mess before her. She peered around at the dishes piled on the end tables, the clothes, toys, and rubbish littered across the floor, an empty crisp packet half tucked in between the couch cushions, and then, when she noticed a partially torn book that was lying beside one of the bookshelves, she lifted her hands to her hips and released an indignant puff of breath. She went carefully down the three steps that led into the living room and Dumbledore noticed that she walked with a slight limp.

She was wearing a pair of faded jeans, a voluminous flannel button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and a big pair of boots. Her hair was long, fell down her back to her waist in a single braid, and it swung in time to her unflared hips. She went straight to the book, leaned down to retrieve it, and when she saw how many pages had been ripped up, Dumbledore watched her throat clenching, her mouth turn down, and her eyes start to sparkle. He realized that she was about to cry, or was doing her best not to, and he wanted to give her a hug. In sympathetic solidarity over a destroyed book, because he loved books, and so did she obviously.

She didn't cry. She did however, with an air of resigned indifference, drop the book onto the floor, readjust her book bag farther up her shoulder and cross the room, picking her way carefully around the detritus, to the dining room table.

Without pausing, she set her bag on a chair and began to clear off the table. Dumbledore, slowly and carefully, made his way into the room with her, keeping close to the walls. He watched her gather up the rubbish, making a face over the smelly nappy, and the dishes; then she brought a damp dishrag to wipe up the food spills from the last meal.

Once the table was cleared and clean, she brought out her school books, sharpened a pencil and began to work some equations. Dumbledore, who had remained in a shadowy corner of the room up until that point, made his way closer to her. He was hoping that a glimpse of her schoolwork might help him get an accurate inkling of her age.

But two things happened almost simultaneously. As he moved out of the shadows she must have heard him, for her head darted up and she looked directly at him. Her eyes happened to make their way up to his. To exactly his, and it was uncanny, because she looked into his eyes for such a protracted length of time, for a moment Dumbledore was beginning to think she could really see him. And then he noticed a clatter of footsteps descending the stairs and a woman with a small child on her hip arrived in the dining room.

"What you think you're doing?!" she bellowed at Luxminder.

~ **x** ~ **}{** ~ **x** ~

It was just another day in her life. A typical shitty day.

Luxminder had decided not to take the bus anymore. It was approximately eight kilometers from school to home, and when the weather got too cold and wet she might start riding it again. But for now, while it was mild and cheery outside, she was going to walk.

Anything to delay getting back "home" was her goal in foregoing the government provided ride. She hated it there. Hated it everywhere come to that. She didn't even like school anymore, and why should she? She was about ten times smarter than all the other kids in her class, probably smarter than some of her teachers. Before the accident she'd attended a private school, and she and her parents had held high hopes that she could sit for her A-Levels a year, or even two, early and quite a few of her teachers had remarked that she was Oxbridge material. It was all so pointless now. Everything felt pointless these days, and she couldn't even finish her homework because she wasn't allowed to by Them. They were slowly pulverizing every dream she'd ever had for her future, so that now it was gloomier than the slum they were turning her house into. Bleaker than ash.

Luxminder couldn't believe that less than a year ago she'd had everything. A good home life, loving interested parents, a sweet little sister to spoil, healthy home-cooked meals: everything. She'd taken it all for granted of course. That was intrinsically linked to the impenetrable innocence that she'd lived in then, because only the innocent ones are oblivious to their innocence. Now she understood that saying, 'ignorance is bliss.'

As she made her reluctant way through the tidy neighborhood streets she started to feel heavier than an anvil the closer she got to her house. Oblivia was mad at her for spending a good forty-five minutes to walk home, when a bus ride would have delivered her there in fifteen. But this was the point, any fool should see that. But she was beyond dense, that one, hence the nickname Oblivia. She couldn't believe that her bright, organized mum was even remotely related to the dullard who called herself a third cousin.

Luxminder wished that it was all a lie. Wished her mum hadn't been related to people like this, but she knew it was true. She'd actually met Oblivia once, after they'd moved to England, but before her parents had passed. She'd been incredulous that Saturday afternoon when the bitch had shown up at the doorstep, ostensibly for "tea".

If her mother hadn't spoken of her philandering father's family often, or with much enthusiasm, at least she brought them up sometimes, and they'd even been to visit them a few times. Her mother's side of the family was a whole different subject, which Elizabeth had almost never talked about. Not willingly. Not without an influx of drilling questions from Luxminder first. Then she'd told her stories about times before her dad had left them - her mum and herself and her little sister Beatrice. She'd told Luxminder about taking a picnic lunch to the park and feeding their bread crusts to the ducks. Or about the time she'd taught Bea to ride her bike in less than a week. But she'd almost never talked about what life had been like after her dad had gone to France, and her mother had fallen to pieces, and she'd gotten a job at only fourteen, so she could save money and put herself through school. Eliza had wanted to become a doctor, but that was out of the question when Bea needed her to put food on the table. And of her maternal aunts and uncles and cousins, not a peep. Nobody had told Luxminder what was wrong with them. Now she knew.

When Oblivia had rung the bell the previous June, Luxminder and Xander had come from the smaller of the two downstairs bedrooms, which her father had wasted no time converting to a dark room upon their arrival in England, to see who had come over uninvited. Was it a traveling salesman? One of their tenants to ask for a repair on a leaky faucet? No. It was a shabby stranger, with a baby on her shoulder, and a rowdy toddler in tow.

Oblivia had obviously "dressed up" for the visit, and a hot pink, knee-length skirt clung unflatteringly to her bulging thighs, and she'd couple it with a flower-print blouse that didn't quite match, and she had on gobs of mascara that made her lashes look like fuzzy spider legs, and plenty of lipstick on her teeth. Luxminder had thought she'd come to see if any of their flats were for rent. Especially when she saw how uncomfortably her mother was speaking to her. Eliza's upper body was stiff, like a board had inserted itself beneath her shirt when no one was looking, and she was clinging to Roxie so tightly that she'd begun to fuss. Something her little sister rarely did when she was being held.

She and her dad joined them, and once the introductions were made her father was the one who'd actually asked her to come in for tea – for which he received a sound tongue-lashing afterward. But once she'd been invited in, Oblivia had given a simpering smile of acceptance and mulishly dragged herself and her little boy over the threshold.

"It's a real shame that Stephen couldn't come here with us. He'd a love yer house, Liza," Oblivia had rambled as she looked around at the sizable living room, the shining floors and the gleaming electronics, in frank admiration. "He's workin' on the neighbor's car today. He's a real hand at that sort thing, you know." As they ushered her into the sunroom she just jabbered away. "I tells him to come on over, it ent but a short drive over from Headstoke, you know, only a half hour on the motorway, but he don't want to be messing with it, when he promised his friend Nigel he'd get his car fixed up for him."

"Is that right?" Xander had asked politely. He was a munificently-hearted man, prepared to give anybody the benefit of the doubt no matter how they looked or spoke.

"Luxie, help me with the tea, sweetheart," her mother told her.

Oblivia's three year old, Robbie he was called, had already begun exploring the plants that they'd bought to add some beauty to the room. He'd started to pluck some of the blossoms off of their foxglove, and Luxminder expected her dad to say something about it, but he hadn't.

"Oh!" Oblivia had cried when she appeared to notice Lux for the first time. "I heared through the grapevine that you'd adopted yerselves a little crippled girl! Aren't you just the prettiest thing? When I's heared it, I thought you up and adopted a girl who'd probably be all ugly and retarded, but she's just as pretty as a pic-"

"She isn't crippled!" Xander had cut in sharply. "And what exactly is wrong with mentally handicapped children? Is being retarded synonymous with being ugly in your book?!"

Luxminder knew that Oblivia calling her crippled was just the blundering tip of the chilly iceberg. Oblivia's comment about her maybe being ugly and retarded had gotten under his skin just as badly. What Oblivia had failed to realize – and this was only one of the many, many reasons Luxminder had dubbed her 'Oblivia' in the first place – was that Roxander had been born with Down's syndrome. Anybody who'd looked at her properly could see it. She had all the characteristic facial features denoting it, namely the bulging forehead and the slanting eyes that always visually set them apart from other children over the age of one.

Oblivia had looked around at them all in shock at her father's outburst but, catching sight of Roxie in his lap, she'd done a double-take and then had the decency to blush.

"Well, I-I'm sure I didn't mean any harm, sir – er, sorry, I's done forgot your name," she stuttered.

Mollified by her embarrassment and pseudo-apology, her dad had calmly repeated his name to her.

Her mother wasn't so quick to forgive and, after fetching the tea and biscuits, lapsed into an unequivocal huff for the remainder of the visit. Alexander had to carry the conversation, which hadn't been difficult because Oblivia hadn't seemed to notice her cousin's sulky silence - or she'd done a very good job at affecting it – and, other than a few cursory questions, had simply nattered away the teatime by enumerating all the wonderful qualities of her husband and her two perfect boys. Luxminder supposed that Oblivia must feel that even if she was deficient in certain things – like a commodious home with a sunroom and an elegant tea service – she could console herself with the knowledge that both of her children were physically and mentally sound.

Luxminder had asked to hold her baby a couple of times, and Oblivia had more than willingly passed him off to her, but both times Roxie had eventually noticed that her favorite plaything was cheating on her, and begun to issue wails of protest and stretch out her arms for Lux, demanding her place of honor in her sister's lap. Robbie had a glob of half-crusted snot under his nose, which Oblivia didn't seem to see, let alone clean off. Finally, getting more and more irritated by it and realizing that his mum didn't give a damn how gross he was, Lux had led him to the bathroom, claiming he was doing a weewee-dance, and had worked it off with some hot water and toilet roll. Robbie had screamed like he was being murdered, as if no one had ever dared to try cleaning up his snot in his entire short life.

When her parents had died, followed less than two months later by her cancerous grandmother, the British authorities had told her that if no family was willing to take her, she'd go into foster care. With many misgivings, after her family in France and Lenora had failed to come for her, Luxminder had given the man at social services the names of Oblivia and her husband. She should have known by how keen they were to pack up all of their belongings and move two towns over at the drop of a hat that it could only mean trouble. She should have closed up her house and gone into foster care. Now she really understood that saying about hindsight being twenty-twenty.

So Oblivia and Robbie and Dylan and the Pervert had moved into the house that her grandparents had left her in their will. (Well, technically it had all gone to her father and mother, but as they'd left her everything in _their_ will, including naming her dead grandparents as her guardians, it had all come to Luxminder.) She now owned four houses, one in America and three here in England. She also had a nice little trust fund set up in her name with a moderate sum of money that increased every month from the rents that the flats collected, and she couldn't touch any of it until she turned eighteen. This was what drove them, the Pervert and Oblivia, barmy she knew. They received a little bit of money from her account for her care, a smaller amount of money from the government for fostering an orphan, and even less money for 'managing' the rental properties. It didn't matter that they had no rent to pay, a much bigger home than whatever shoebox they'd crawled out of, and extra income for doing absolutely nothing on her behalf. The Pervert had really believed when he'd agreed to "care" for her that he would have unfettered access to her entire inheritance.

Luxminder still couldn't understand everything that was happening to her, but she wasn't nearly as clueless as she used to be, and what she did know, by now without a doubt, was that the Pervert hated her because she had and _was_ so many things that he could never have or _be_. So he'd made it his personal mission in life to set about systematically destroying all the beautiful accouterments of her's that he would never be allowed to possess. Including her spirit. And he was winning. By god, he was crushing her.

She could cope with being removed from her private school and kissing away her bright dreams for an excellent education. She could deal with them turning her father's childhood home into a rubbish bin. She could even handle the pinches, hair-pulling, slaps, kicks, the constant cleaning up after them and their children, preparing almost every boxed and frozen meal that they ate, barely finding the time to have baths, let alone take care of her abundant hair, and going through every day in a miserable daze. But it was the sexual abuse that was doing her in. Even if it was just the fellatio she had to perform on him (every night that Oblivia went to work), she'd be okay, she thought. That night in the loo, though. If she had to go through that again she'd slit her wrists.

So she didn't fight them anymore. She didn't have tantrums when the Pervert turned a profit from selling _her_ things, sentimental or just valuable - like her father's antique cameras and her grandfather's expensive carpentry equipment. Her grandmother's rare coin and stamp collections had gone as well. Luxminder didn't scream at them anymore and cry, like she'd done when the little ones had destroyed all of Roxander's old toys and books, or when they'd thrown out her wooby.

That blanket had such a precious history to Luxminder, to all of them. Back when Alexander and Elizabeth were just a fresh, gullible couple, lured to America with untarnished hopes of a better life, they'd tried again and again to have a child of their own. Eliza had knitted the blanket when she'd missed her first period. But the blood had come gushing out again a mere few months later. And again; and again. She kept the blanket though. Couldn't stop crying into it, but couldn't let it go the way her insufficient womb had rejected every fetus it had attempted and failed to cradle into life.

So the blanket had stuck around long after the dream had departed.

But then her father had found her. Sitting by the sidewalk, eating dirt, so covered in it he wasn't even certain she was dark-skinned, thought perhaps she was just dusty. But her teal eyes had shone out from her earth-caked face, and her artistic, beauty-loving father had been enchanted. When the little Mexican woman who fostered her had come out to see who was talking at her abandoned charge he'd told her, _You have the most beautiful daughter, Senora_.

 _No, senor. She's not my bambina. I take in the kids for the state, ci?_

And that was when he knew he told her later. Her dad used to call her his greatest discovery. And the blanket, the old dream knit anew, had been brought out from the trunk and had at last found a babe to swaddle and pacify.

And passing that wooby on to her little sister, the little usurper, had held such a wrenching, coming-of-age symbolism for Luxminder. It had represented her acceptance of Roxie, and her security in remaining her father's greatest discovery.

Indifference, or perhaps acceptance, which was worse in many ways; that was Luxminder's greatest burden now. What her parents dying had taught her, cursed her with. As Luxminder had been pounded through each layer of her downward mobility, she had learned the truest depths and meanings of sorrow, anger, defiance, retaliation, hatred, and now indifference. And here in the antipodes the external world was unchanged, but she could only see it through the ash-colored lenses of apathy. It was her carapace and her rocky core; her whole being.

Once home, Luxminder walked in to the usual disarray. All the evidence of Oblivia's day alone with her two children - number three on the way - was scattered across every surface in sight. Dirty sippy cups and half-eaten biscuits lay on the floor in front of the telly, a high-heeled sandal stuck out from the beneath the skirt of the sofa, discarded crisp packets were sticking out of the cushions they had been tucked into instead of being taken to the bin, tiny pieces of Robbie's building sets spread out across the wooden floors (a tripping hazard for Lux, a choking hazard for Dylan, and sure to have added _more_ scratches to the gleaming, handcrafted flooring that her grandfather had lovingly laid before Luxminder was born – not to mention that these gouges detracted from the overall value of the house), and it was all going to be picked up by _her_ before the Pervert got home from his job at the mechanic shop or she'd get slapped around until it was done. Not because they wanted a clean and tidy house, but just so she wouldn't forget her place.

Then she noticed something that made her heart ache.

She picked up her grandfather's book off the floor. It had been slaughtered in her absence. Another one. She'd used to beg Oblivia to keep the kids away from the books. If they didn't tear the pages up - apparently they even loved the _sound_ of destruction - then they'd take their crayons and markers to them. It was a shame. This book was the last of an old, expensive set of encyclopaedias.

Luxminder had tried to move all the books up onto the higher shelves and out of their reach. But the second Oblivia turned her back on them, which she did _all the time_ , they'd just scale the shelves for them. One time Lux had spotted one of Robbie's favorite plastic dinosaur toys on the sixth shelf from the top. That was about six feet off the ground. Oblivia wouldn't give a damn, Luxminder guessed, until one them cracked their head open. Then, even if she were at school, Oblivia and the Pervert would probably find a way to blame it on her. She got blamed for everything around here. She was the resident 'whipping girl.'

Luxminder just dropped the book, tired of caring, and went to the dinner table, cleaned it up, and got out her school books. She could hear the kids running around up there while Oblivia shouted at them to be quiet. She was probably trying to sleep. But Luxminder thought, or hoped, she might be able to get some of her trigonometry finished before the bitch realized she was home.

Lux only solved one of the problems when she saw someone moving in the corner of her eye. She looked up. And was greeted by the most beautiful thing she'd seen in almost a year. But it was too unreal to be believed. She just looked at him in dumb confusion. He was transparent, like a ghost. Like a figment of her imagination.

Oh, god! This was it! She'd finally cracked. She always knew would. What would happen if she were locked up in a loony bin? _Peace, that's what_ , she thought. _Blessed, oblivious peace and you won't have to worry about this shit anymore._

And there was Oblivia, with Dylan on her hip, and Robbie jumping around in circles behind her.

"Wotcha think yer doing?!"

"Homework," she replied.

"I'm tellin' Stephen how long yer taking to get 'ome today!" she barked. "I have to get to work in less than five hours, and I need some sleep! Now do yer chores, and keep 'em quiet!"

Luxminder kept looking back and forth between Dumbledore and Oblivia, but she was either living up to her moniker in an unbelievable way, or she couldn't see him. Was it a spell he'd done so that only she could see him? And if so, why?

Oblivia put Dylan down and pounded back up the stairs.

Luxminder wondered if she should address the wizard she'd…somehow…managed to lure here. Should she just ask him what he expected her to do? No. Whatever was happening, she decided, she would allow him to initiate their first contact. She had an idea that he might want to see her home, her life, her hell.

So she packed away her books and put some cartoons on for the kids to keep them pacified while she began to tidy and clean. It wasn't easy. Today, as he had many times before, Robbie waited until she'd packed most of his toys in a big cardboard box they kept against the wall of living room when he wasn't playing with them. After he sent her to the kitchen for another fizzy drink, he opened the box and started redistributing them across the floor.

"Oi!" she cried, as loudly as she dared, on her way back in from the dining room. "Robbie, please don't do that!"

About thirty seconds later the Pervert walked in the door. And Luxminder knew it was going to be one of _those_ days.

He saw his son tossing his blocks into the air, watched them land and skid over the floors, and immediately made his way to Luxminder to issue her the first slap of the day. He got hold of her by the hair, his favorite handle, and pulled his arm back pretty far, then pulled it in tighter before he clashed his open palm to her cheek. He rarely left bruises, and never on her face, neck, and arms. He felt safe kicking the soft flesh of her real leg, for at this point he knew that she never wore anything short enough to expose her artificial limb. Sometimes he'd give her swift punch to the abdomen – not hard enough to cause internal damage, but just knocked the wind out of her – and,if he knew his wife was at work or at the food market, he loved to pinch her nipples, and he frequently yanked at her hair. No matter how angry he was, no matter how much alcohol he drank, he never lost control, and he never left visible marks or hurt her so badly that she'd need medical care. To Luxminder these cool, calculating methods were what made him so frightening. And so evil.

Sometimes she wished he would slip into a rage and unleash on her, perhaps kill her. Then everybody would know what a monster he really was. But even in the past, even when she'd tried provoking him, he hadn't given in to his fury. Except once. But even then he had devised a way to torture her without leaving any cuts and bruises where anybody save herself was likely to look.

When Luxminder saw him coming at her she knew what he meant to do. She didn't flee or even flinch. She only closed her eyes and tilted her head back, waiting. The physical assaults and the debauchery were the only forms of human contact she received now. She was ready and resigned. If Dumbledore was only a figment of her insanity, so be it. If not, let him see.

"Pick all this shit up," he quietly growled.

Then he went to the couch, settled down into it, couldn't find the remote, grumbled, got up to flip the channel to a football match, and re-settled.

Luxminder went to the kitchen to get him a beer.


	23. An Eviction Notice

**Posted:** **12/26/15**

 **An Eviction Notice**

 **19th** **September, 1995**

Luxminder's fears that Dumbledore might be a figment of her imagination reasserted themselves when he stayed in his corner and watched the Pervert slap her for no good reason. Surely if he were really here, here for her, with her, he would protect her. Wouldn't he?

Perhaps not. Perhaps she had misjudged him. Luxminder had considered a wide array of candidates to ask for help before she had settled on Dumbledore. Government officials (muggle and magical) – both British and American, presidents and prime ministers past and present, and even some very powerful criminals that she'd happened upon. In the end, she hadn't based her criteria on any sort of critical moralizing that took in karmic returns or universal goodwill. She had simply chosen Dumbledore because he seemed incredibly powerful, yet thoroughly uncorrupt. Unlike anything she'd seen elsewhere. With him, Luxminder thought she was unlikely to end up in a sterile laboratory cage, being poked, prodded, studied, and experimented on. Or mercilessly exploited. Not that she cared if her power to spy was exploited so much, but she wanted the freedom and protection to be able to live her personal life on her own terms.

She continued her afternoon and evening in the exact same way that she always did. She cleaned the toilets, tubs, and sinks; she swept, mopped, and dusted; she took Robbie and Dylan with her from room to room, telling stories, singing and talking to them, imploring them to be calm and above all, _please_ , _please_ stay quiet.

Dylan wasn't quite old enough to grasp that his status within the household would improve dramatically if he mimicked his elders' abuse of their nanny, maid, laundress, and cook. Since he was only two, Luxminder didn't think anybody in their right mind would hold it against him when he followed her around like a puppy and always sought her out when he had a boo-boo or needed a cuddle. But somehow, Oblivia and the Pervert managed to treat their own son like a criminal when they happened to notice the two of them cozied up together, laughing.

Robbie adored Luxminder as well, but only in secret. When his mother and father were in the room he would either ignore her or call her names and kick at her shins. The Pervert lauded this behavior, laughed and encouraged him. Even though Luxminder knew that deep down Robbie loved her, that he was simply desperate for his father's attention and his love and approval, sometimes she couldn't help feeling a bit hurt and betrayed when he treated her this way. She gave him and his brother the only real mothering that they received. She fed and bathed them, washed their clothes and dressed them, took them to the park on the weekends when the weather was good and pushed them on the swings as much as they liked. She made up games for them to play, and she'd even begun teaching them their alphabet – Robbie was four years old, so it was scandalous he hadn't already been taught this.

Although Luxminder loved Robbie and Dylan, if the see-through wizard in the corner _was_ come to relieve her of this life, Lux knew she wasn't going to miss them that much. Not the way she missed Roxie. There were too many painful moments attached to caring for the boys. All the times she'd had to ignore her own needs because she had to mind them; or the time when she'd lost her temper and hit them. Under her parents' care spankings were very rare – Luxminder could count on one hand the number of times her father had been angry enough to lays hands on her. The Pervert and Oblivia resolved every little infraction with harsh yells, and frequently emphasized them with slaps on their bums, thighs, and even their faces. Ironically, they'd forbidden Luxminder from hitting them. But once, she'd been so upset that she'd disobeyed this injunction and she'd never stopped feeling guilty about it since. They hadn't even been particularly bad that day; she'd just been exceptionally mad and upset at the brute that had sired them.

At six-thirty she took them to the kitchen and began supper. Just a box of Dinner-Helper and some minced meat. She browned the beef, added the rest of the ingredients, lidded the pan, lowered the heat, and while it simmered she started to sing I'm-a-Little-Teapot, putting one hand on her hip and holding the other out to display her spout. Robbie and Dylan mirrored her pantomimes, lifted their sweet chirpy voices to unify with her own.

Suddenly her hair was yanked – the Pervert had come in quietly from behind. He pulled her head down and back until she cried out from the pain of it. It was what he'd been waiting for. After she verbalized her agony he slackened his grip a little and began to snarl softly into her ear, "Yer being too fuckin' loud, ya lil' cunt. Shut yer worthless mouth and finish the dinner."

He released her, and just as quietly and quickly he was gone.

Luxminder turned away from the children, kept her head down, returned to the stove to stir the meat and noodles, discreetly wiping off her tears and massaging her neck.

It was like this all the time.

In the beginning she'd been so sassy to them. But now she was broken.

After she'd served the boys and the Pervert their supper, she took the little ones upstairs for a bath. They hadn't bathed much when they'd first moved in, but she'd made it into a nightly ritual which they had finally accepted and now enjoyed. As she leaned over the tub to scrub them Lux kept stealing glances at the door. Sometimes the Pervert would come in while she bathed his children and leer at her with those soul-dead eyes. A reminder of his power, what they both knew he was capable of. The first time he came in after the Soul-Breaking Night she'd tried to leave. But he'd blocked the door. Just stood there, holding her with his lewd gaze and she'd cried again. She couldn't stand being in that loo by herself, but being in there with him again was torture. Her hands had started shaking so badly she'd accidentally gotten soap in Dylan's eye. Over the months since, he'd done this less and less, but she was still cautious of him coming in.

When the kids were in bed she told them the story of Ping and sang them a lullaby. Only then did she have the chance to return to the kitchen to begin the washing up. While Luxminder was mopping the kitchen Oblivia came in to gobble down a plate of the dinner helper before she left for work. Oblivia was the shift supervisor at an off-site, and though she hated the hours, she loved the prestige of being in management. To hear her talk about it, everything and everybody would fall apart without her there. Luxminder found it a bit pathetic when she had to listen to this drivel. After Oblivia had received the promotion, she would strike up conversations with total strangers, wherever they went, just so she could tell them what she did for a living. _Muy, muy patetico._

The Dumbledore-apparition remained in the corner, only watching. Luxminder looked over at him quite often as she wiped countertops, packed up the leftovers for the Pervert's lunch tomorrow, dried and put away the clean dishes. Was he going to intervene when he saw what was going to happen next? As she watched Oblivia use the reflection from the microwave to apply a thick coat of red lipstick, Luxminder's stomach began to clench with a reflexive dread and the muscles in her shoulders were aching with tautness. This was always the worst part of her day. Not the actual part when she put his dick in her mouth, as she was fairly good at tuning everything out while it was happening. It was the last moments before he got her - watching Oblivia eat and preen, wiping down all the appliances just so she could delay trying to slip past him to her bedroom – the last moments in which she could hope that he might just fall asleep or leave her be were the worst.

The Pervert waited fifteen minutes after his wife left, and Luxminder heard him get up to put on one of his videos. Oblivia knew he had them. Sometimes on her nights off they would sit on the couch and enjoy them together.

Luxminder had seen them at it a few times on her way out. She never stopped to watch though, the way she might have done if she were younger and they were simply her neighbors or tenants. She just flew straight past the Pervert and Oblivia and went to fly around London, or to search for the aurora borealis, or to New York to see Dax. She felt so free when she slipped away; pity she couldn't bring her body with her.

Once the Pervert had the raunchy movie on, he turned off the lamps and resettled on the sofa, waiting for her. She tarried as long as she dared, for if he had to get up and come for her, he invariably compensated for this inconvenience with plenty of kicks and smacks. So she wrung out the dishrag and hung it over the sink-divider. She could hear the porn stars moaning and swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. The Dumbledore-apparition was still in the corner, watching. She gave him one more look, despair and hope in equal parts, hung her head in shame, turned off the kitchen light, and started to walk as quietly as she could to her bedroom. Luxminder stayed as close to the wall as possible, wishing she might meld into it. She just made it past him when he called her.

"Oi! Where ya think yer goin'?!"

"I'm tired," she said in a soft, subdued voice.

"Get yer arse over here," he commanded.

She obeyed.

She couldn't believe this was going to happen in front of someone else. _What_ had she been thinking when she wrote that letter? She'd invited a stranger, a strange man, into her private world of humiliation and horror. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Dumbledore was supposed to have knocked on the door and introduced himself to the Pervert and used his magic to force a confession out of him. Luxminder had fantasized about the Pervert admitting everything - that he was nothing but a sorry, disgusting pig - while he blubbered in the face of Dumbledore's righteous disapprobation – or, even better, Dumbledore's terrible fury on her behalf.

Tears were pouring down her cheeks as went to the sofa and sat down. She went to the opposite end of it, as far from the Pervert as she could manage, and she hadn't bothered doing this in months. Luxminder was trained to the point where she would go to him, unfasten his pants without a prompt, and proceed with the nasty business like an unfeeling android. But tonight, with an audience – even one that might be imaginary – Luxminder couldn't bring herself to make it so easy for the Pervert. She kept her eyes away from the telly and scanned the room for the Dumbledore-apparition, but it was too dim to see much.

Suddenly Luxminder wanted to call out to him. She wanted to scream and sob and beg Dumbledore to stop this, to please help. If he wasn't actually here, what would The Pervert do in the face of such insane behavior? Would he take pity on her and let her go to bed? Doubtful. He might take her back to the loo though. He might think she needed to be re-broken.

"Wotcha think yer doin'?" The Pervert intruded into her mad reverie.

Luxminder was so frightened. With the chance of someone watching them, she could see everything with new eyes and this felt exactly like the first time. The initial shame and loathing washed over her, so fresh, so undiluted by the numbing tedium of routine.

The Pervert was getting mad, as patience was merely one drop in a fathoms-deep ocean of virtues that he had never dipped so much as a tentative toe into.

"Do we need to make a trip to the loo?" he whispered.

"No!" Luxminder cried while she shook her head as hard as she could. And she rigidly began to scoot over to him.

As soon as she was within reach the Pervert put one arm around her and with his free hand he began to paw her chest. She froze. This was new. He'd only ever done this to her once before. But before she could ponder what new form of abuse this presaged, the lamps were lit and Dumbledore, no longer imaginary or a ghost, was walking toward them with his wand out. He seemed to embody the wrathful nemesis of her fantasies except he was even more intimidating than she had envisioned him. Rings of power seemed to distend outward from his very center, and his eyes were like penetrative stabs of coldness. The concentricity of magic rippling through her – tidal waves really – left her with a sensation of tightly curbed vehemence, a barely governable retribution. She shivered and shied from it. Luxminder was dearly relieved that she was not the focal point of this alarming vision.

Within seconds of the lamps lighting, the stick of wood he held blurred as fulgurous colours whipped out of it, to the side of her and into the Pervert.

In her present shame she turned away from them both, couldn't bear the rawness of Dumbledore's furious conviction, though she knew it wasn't directed her way. But the nakedness of his indignation made her achingly aware of the iniquities she suffered. To be seen in this situation by _anybody_ , but especially by the man before her, who had always seemed so kind and _good_ , made her want to curl up and die. She didn't even check to see what had been done to the Pervert. She dropped her head and started to sob uncontrollably. The fact that it was all really over wasn't inside of her head yet, giving her the succor she'd sought, but it was only this moment, this couch, these salacious sounds of moaning and hips slapping against buttocks from the television, this man beside her, who mere moments ago had been taking reprehensible liberties with her breasts. She was here, it had all happened to her, was happening now, and with a sympathetic witness there was no mental escape. Luxminder could no longer pretend that it was all okay. She was as shattered as she'd been the Soul-Breaking Night.

Strong but gentle hands took hold of Luxminder, lifted her off the sofa, and she was delicately, carefully led to an armchair and deposited into it. A soft piece of fabric was placed in her palm. She understood. Her savior, her benefactor, without words, was telling Luxminder that she was being rescued from the Pervert. Only to the other side of the living room now, but very soon across a canyon of security that the Pervert would have no means to span.

The act, this silent commiseration penetrated her mind - Luxminder's heart - and she began to take deep, soothing breaths. By slow degrees calm returned.

Using the handkerchief to sop up her face, she finally whispered, "I'm sorry."

"You've nothing to be sorry for," Dumbledore told her.

His words only brought home the fact that she was indeed a victim, and they threatened to unravel her again. She marshaled her emotions, however, sick of the self-pity-party and ready to move on, she simply nodded her acknowledgment and told him, "Yes."

She finally looked at him. Luxminder and Dumbledore, without magical or bodiless barriers, faced one another for the first time. Decades and indeed centuries later, this moment would be speculated about in history books and spun into stage plays, for it was to become the stuff of legends. But neither of them knew this. It was a grave, awkward moment for them both, but a very secluded and intimate one as well. Both wondered what the other thought, both tried to make assessments based on the other's appearance and foreknowledge. If Dumbledore felt himself at a disadvantage because she had spied on him, it was all canceled out by her current vulnerability. Whatever she might know based on her invisible observations of him, he knew her most shameful and deepest secret. Thus far, they were equals.

"Will you make him leave?" she asked suddenly.

"Make him leave?" Dumbledore returned, confused.

"Yes. Will you make them all leave my house? I don't want them here anymore," she told him earnestly.

"This-" he began, but then it all fell into place. A line from her letter came back to him: _There just using me for free room and board, and slave labor!_ Of course it was hers. She hadn't been brought here to live with them when her parents passed. These people had invaded _her_ once-beautiful house. Now she wanted him to remove them from her home.

"I will, Luxminder. But not tonight."

" _Please_!" she exclaimed, her eyes glistening again. "I can't sleep another night under the same roof as him!"

"I know," he said in an assuring, propitiative tone. "Remain calm. We cannot wake the little ones at this time of night and put them out on the streets. I will make sure they vacate the premise in as timely a manner as is reasonable. Tonight, though, you and I will go to London. You will stay there with someone I trust until suitable arrangements can be made for your living situation. Is this acceptable to you?"

Luxminder considered this proposal. What she wanted, more than anything, was to be out of the Pervert's power forever. When she wrote the letter to Dumbledore, she hadn't specified how he was to accomplish this; she had vaguely begged him for help and merely asked that he liberate her from an unlivable life. Nothing more or less. Luxminder's thoughts turned over the bitter prospect of the Pervert remaining a resident of her father's house for one more second, but then the faces of Dylan and Robbie overtook her mind's eye. Where would they go at this time of night? A motel. But no, Dumbledore was right of course. Impetuosity was a child's game. She was no longer a child and must put this idea away.

He could see her mind churning in her eyes as he told her his plan and asked for her consent. After very little contemplation she gave it. "Yes. Okay, you're right. Should I pack some clothes?"

But, as she asked him this, her head tilted to see past him. "What did you do to him?"

"He's fine. For now. Temporally unable to move any muscle in his body, save the ones required to give him breath."

"What- What will you do with him, sir?"

"Well, I was planning on letting you decide," he said, with a serene, yet searching look. "What would you like me to do to him?"

Luxminder was quite confused by his question. " _Do_ to him? Well, I- " She stopped. Suddenly the suspicion that there was a subtext to this question stole through her. "I told you. I want you to evict him. Please." He was giving her such an appraising look, one that made her feel unclothed and transparent.

"Shall we call the police? Have him arrested?" he asked her.

"No!" she was swift to answer. "Please, sir. I don't want to do that!" Luxminder was feeling a bit panicked now. This wasn't what she wanted. All the fuss and the questions, even a trial perhaps, where she would have to talk about what had happened to her in front of a courtroom full of strangers. "Please," she whispered pleadingly. "I just want to forget everything."

Dumbledore inspected her for a moment longer before he gave a small nod.

He stood and began to cast a panoply of different coloured spells around the ceiling and doorways.

"The spells that I'm casting are going to keep all sounds contained in this room. Now the little boys will not be awakened by any noises that should occur while I- er- talk to this man," Dumbledore explained as he sound-proofed the room. "What is his name?"

The Pervert, she almost said. "Stephen Sheffield," she quietly told him.

After a few moments, once Dumbledore had finished sealing the room with magic, he turned to the Pervert, and, so quickly Luxminder could hardly see, he waved his wand at the Pervert. Lux watched as he started to blink and cough. The Pervert was on his feet in a moment, advancing toward Dumbledore with his fists raised.

With a lazy flick of Dumbledore's wand the Pervert was lifted off of his feet and, as though bound at his wrists and ankles, his arms and legs were splayed ignominiously.

"Geroff!" the Pervert shouted. His eyes bulged in shock and anger, and he was looking wildly around. "What the fuck! What the _fuck_!" He sounded like he was about to cry.

"There's no need for this crass language, Mr. Sheffield," Dumbledore told him in a composed voice. He loosely hooked his wand-free hand around his other wrist and held them together in front of his body; he seemed completely at his ease.

"What the f-fuck are y-you?!" spluttered the Pervert.

"I am a wizard," Dumbledore told him. "And while I can appreciate how alarming this revelation must be for you, and how uncomfortable it is to be suspended mid-air without any visible or tangible devices holding you there, still I must insist that you refrain from using foul words until I have taken Luxminder and departed. If you continue to do so, I shall use my wand," Dumbledore held the wand up for Stephen to see, "to seal your mouth until I have said my piece and gone."

"Take the cu- the girl?!" Stephen asked. "What the fu-" He looked at the wand with trepidation and closed his mouth.

He was a quick learner. Luxminder had to give him that.

"Yes, I am here this evening to collect Luxminder," Dumbledore continued. "She wrote a letter to me a few weeks ago, asking for my assistance with her terrible home-life. I came here earlier today, used magic to make myself invisible, and have been observing your appalling treatment of her since she returned from school. She did not lie to me in her letter. You and your wife's treatment of her, I find, is just as despicable as what she described to me in her desperate plea for help. You not only have a complete lack of interest for her well-being – not to mention what you seem to lack for your own children – but I have witnessed you brutalizing her, without provocation, twice. And this," Dumbledore gestured toward the naked people on the telly, "well, _this_ is just contemptuous beyond description."

The Pervert was eyeing Dumbledore now with leery heedfulness.

"If you were the father of one of my pupils - for you see, I am the headmaster of a very prestigious school for magical children - I would not only have you arrested immediately, but I would personally see to it that you were prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If I was an unprincipled man," and here Luxminder saw his eyes take on a slightly sinister gleam, "I would like nothing more than to maim or, perhaps, kill you. However, I have asked Luxminder if she would like to let your Muggle – Muggles are non-magical people – police men come here this evening and remove you from decent society, in keeping with what you most definitely deserve, but she has indicated that all she wants is your removal from her sight, her house, and her life forever. So, as her new guardian - which, by the way, I fully intend to make legal as soon as time allows - and as a clever, magical wizard whom you can never hope to outwit or overcome, I am _ordering_ you to pack up all of your belongings and procure some new lodgings for your family and yourself without delay. You have-"

"Aargh!" the Pervert cut in, looking quite livid again. "We ent got nowhere to go and no money! Where ya spect us ta _live_!" (This was a lie. Stephen and Meredith Sheffield were saving almost all of their expendable income and were planning to buy and run their own mechanic shop, as soon as they procured sufficient funding.)

" _That_ is none of my concern. You have been living here for-" and here he turned to Luxminder as he guessed, "a year?" Luxminder nodded and said, "About that. Yeah." Dumbledore looked at the man dangling in the air before him and continued, "You have been living here for a year without any rent or mortgage payments to make. You and your wife, from what I have gathered, both work. If you have no money, that is nobodies fault but your own. I will give you one week to gather your things and clear out. You are _not_ to live in this town. You are _never_ to come within seventy kilometers of this house, and if, years from now even, you ever see Luxminder walking down a road in another _country_ , I suggest you turn around and head in the opposite direction. For, from this day forth, I will _always_ be watching out for her, and I _will_ know if you violate any of the rules I have just laid forth for her protection.

"Now then, I am going to release you. You will go to bed, and in the morning you will begin the process of packing and finding a new place to live."

The Pervert made a noise that sounded angry, derisive, scared, and plaintive all at once. "What will I say ter Meredith, eh? 'Ow will I explain the girl's done a bunk an' we gotta move outta town?"

"Well, I highly advise against the truth. Anybody you try to convince that a wand-wielding wizard used his magic to pin you up in thin air will think you mad, and your wife might try to have you put in an insane asylum. But rest assured, whatever you have to say to convince your wife that your free ride is over is highly recommended, because I will return here in one week," and with another casual wave, the Pervert was spun around until he was now hanging upside-down, "and if you haven't done as I've said, there will undoubtedly be repercussions."

"Alrigh', alrigh'!" the Pervert conceded, his face turning purple from the all the blood rushing downward. "We'll get out by the end of the week! Let me down now, so's I can go ter bed!"

Dumbledore turned him right side up and, after a moment of intense eye contact, released him.

The Pervert stood there for a moment while the blood that had collected in his head redistributed itself to his lower extremities. He threw Luxminder one look, and so thick with hatred it was that she took an unconscious step backward.

Once the Pervert went up the stairs and his booming steps were heard from above as he went to his and Oblivia's bedroom, Dumbledore turned to Luxminder and asked, "Are you alright?"

She nodded a bit, and then answered, "Yes. Shall I go pack?"

"Yes," he agreed. "That's a good girl."

She headed down a hallway off the living room. Dumbledore followed her, his eyes drawn back to her mismatched gait. He decided against saying anything about it for the time being.

Her bedroom was small and sparsely furnished. He quietly watched as she began to pack up a navy-blue shoulder bag with some garments. She fetched a toothbrush from the lavatory, and an extra pair of boots from the closet. In a very short amount of time all the worldly possessions she needed or wanted were put away and ready for transportation.

He held out an arm for her and asked, "Ready?"

"Sir," she turned serious, troubled eyes to him, "sir, will you promise me something?"

"Well," he hesitated. "If it's within my power and inclination I shall."

She was silent for a moment and then she began her request, "Will you promise me that…no matter how things between us work out- I mean," she stopped again. He watched her gathering her thoughts and saw that her eyes were glistening with some suppressed emotion. "I just want you to promise me that, no matter what happens from here on out, you'll never bring me back here, to him."


	24. A Side-trip to Reality

**Posted: 12/31/15**

 **A/N: Thank you to those who continue to support my story by leaving me reviews. Well, both of you: Alice Helena and Toorach. I hope both of you have an awesome New Year!**

* * *

 _"Baddock is a complete imbecile who couldn't even matriculate into our ranks, Lucius," Severus impugned quietly. His own blithe stance and tone were perfectly calculated to make Lucius' unhinged rants and gestures seem all the more buffoonish. "I was his professor at Hogwarts. He was an idiot. A Hufflepuff idiot."_

 _"Well, then perhaps it's because that…thing is too abnormal!" the gesticulator rejoined._

 _"These pathetic extenuations don't suit you, Malfoy" Severus told him with careful conviction. "Now I suggest you find your Sobriscendia, and work out what you're going to say to our master when he arrives. I also advise you to drop the self-righteous façade. At least for the time being."_

 _Severus headed for the door and called back, "Narcissa, lend Draco your wand while he accompanies me to pay the attacker and his auntie a visit. And be quick about it."_

 _Without waiting for a response Severus left the room._

 **A Side-trip to Reality**

When Draco asked Mother for the wand, she told him, "Your father still has it."

Father reached into the pocket of his pajama bottoms for it and pulled out an empty hand. Then he dug around the other side and came up, again, with nothing. With a look that could only be described as sheepish, he confessed, "I must have left it in the sitting-room."

It was all Draco could do to keep from rolling his eyes as he turned for the door. "It must be on the credenza!" Father called after him.

And that's where Mother's wand was sitting - right next to the silver liquor tray, beside an empty glass of scotch. Draco noticed that Father hadn't remembered to re-stopper the decanter either, and he gingerly replaced the crystal cork before he headed for the cellar.

By this time Severus was probably almost to the first floor, but Draco didn't rush to catch him up. He wasn't in any hurry to get back to the sight of Bella torturing Baddock, no matter how badly the dumb cretin deserved it. Except for the Dark Lord, nobody executed the Cruciatus Curse with as much debilitating malice as Bellatrix. (Although Draco called her Aunt Bella when he addressed her aloud, lately he thought only of her as Bella or Bellatrix in the privacy of his mind.) Since he'd heard Bellatrix yelling at Mother that Father was a weak fool, and that she should just allow him to die, he'd pretty much lost what little respect for her he'd thus far managed to maintain, since she was family.

He'd drifted in and out of slumber that whole night, and he had murky recollections of Jane on the bed beside Father, washing his bare chest and also of her helping Mother cradle his head to tip healing potions down his throat. Draco had never spoken of it though. He knew that the last thing Father would want to know was that Jane had aided Mother in nursing him back to health. Draco had woken up the next morning in nothing but his pants and he couldn't help wondering whether Jane had washed him as well. It made his skin crawl if he thought about it too much, so mostly he just didn't. Draco was pretty good at not thinking about things that made him uncomfortable.

As he slowly headed down the staircases towards the cellar, he didn't even try to stop thinking about how Jane had looked naked. He didn't care that she was just a Muggle, just twelve years old, with no appealing curves and not even both breasts combined would make a handful. Blocking out the memory of her stump, Draco focused on the sanguine color of her sickle-sized nipples, her stretch of smooth stomach, even her belly-button (the picture of which he now found surprisingly tantalizing), and the threadbare carpet of black, curly pubic hair. The unpredictable Dark Lord was going to be implacably, lethally enraged when Professor Snape inevitably called him, and there were no guarantees about who would live through the night. He might die, and Draco was just happy that he had finally seen a naked female, and even though Jane was just a slip of a thing - and therefore barely even counted - Draco kept recalling the sight of her sweaty and undressed when she'd pretty much landed in his lap. Pity he might die a virgin. That's what Draco thought about constantly these days. He didn't want to die before he'd had the chance to experience sex.

Draco had a lot of fantasies about Agnes. His latest favorite was that he was in his lavatory wanking it, and she came in to clean. When Agnes saw what he was doing she either did one of two things. Sometimes she was sort of shy, shocked, and really apologetic.

"I'm sorry, master Draco," she'd say to him. Her eyes would be lowered in the most piquant manner, and her pale freckled face would go the sweetest shade of pink - not a deep mortified red, but a simple flush of pleasure mingled with a proper humility. In these instances Agnes knew her place, accepted it; she found herself delighted to be _his_ servant.

"Lock the door, Agnes," he would say forcefully. "I don't want anyone else to disturb me while you're cleaning up in here. There's a bit of dirt that you missed yesterday, over by the sink."

And before she took her bucket of cleaning supplies over to the sink to do his bidding, Agnes would curtsy. Merlin, that little bow killed him. Every. Time.

Then he would proceed to give her more directions about what she should clean. Agnes would keep flitting sly glances at him while he pretended to ignore her. He was usually sitting on the lid of the toilet, but sometimes he was on the edge of the bath. Finally, she would clean her way over to wherever he was working on himself.

"Master is there anything else you'd like me to do?" she would coyly ask.

He would crack his eyes open a fraction and give her an appraising, not wholly unaffected, look. "Is everything clean?" he would inquire lightly.

"Yes master," she would tell him in a tremulous voice, being slightly intimidated by his masculine, superior presence, and also flustered by her sensual reaction to it.

"Then you may go, Agnes," he would tell her. But he would linger over her name as he said it, as if he were savoring a morsel of cake.

"Sure there ent nothing else you'd like 'elp with?" she would offer one last time. "Sir?"

And then sometimes he would say, "My wrist _is_ starting to ache a bit, now you ask. If you'll be so kind as to help me out with this, I'll be sure Father throws in a nice little bonus for you, come Christmas." Because he was nothing, if not generous to his servant.

But sometimes instead of asking her he would just take her hand and guide it to his tumescent, aching sex. Either scenario ended with her knees on the cold tiles, and her lips encasing him.

Other times when she came into the lavatory and saw him pulling on his hard dick, she wasn't in the least bit demure. Unbidden, and with a lubricious look in her eyes, she would close and lock the door, put down her bucket, and proceed to remove her apron and robes. In these fantasies, Agnes was experienced, aggressive, and eager to tutor him in the art of love-making.

At these times, Draco's imagination seemed to have a raging life of its own. He would often throw in some of the tales he'd listened to in the Slytherin boys' dormitory; which ranged from lame, to credible, to wild, and then beyond - where they arrived at totally absurd. Draco had, like many of his housemates, lied at times and tried to sound more experienced than he actually was, but was careful not to go _too_ far. It seemed like the harder the other young men tried to come off as lotharios, the more obvious it became that they were really just virgins. In his fifth year, Draco had once told a very nice lie about an attractive third cousin performing fellatio on him under a staircase at a Christmas ball. He was pretty sure that his mates had bought it. He had added a seminal spill on the hem of her gown that they had both been frantic to clean up, lest an adult see it and guess what it was – and he thought this little touch of fecklessness on his part had been what really sold it.

The sight of the cellar door and the timbre of voices from within heaved him back to reality.

Sighing a little, Draco tested the door, found that is was locked, and used his mother's wand to open it.

As he descended the stone steps he could hear Professor Snape's smooth resonations mixed with Bella's harsh ones.

"He disobeyed the Dark Lord's order that no harm be done to his new _pet_ ," Bella spat, her belligerent voice scraping through the stairwell like a death-rattle. "He has to be punished," she rasped.

The rich voice of Professor Snape was an unction in contrast. "The Dark Lord will be angry if Baddock is too damaged to make his pointless excuses and beg for his life. Baddock can barely stand at this point, Bellatrix. And I am positive that our master will wish to dispense the reprisals without your interference."

Once he gained the bottom of the steps, Draco saw Professor Snape and Bella facing each other with their wands pointed at one another and quietly walked to stand behind his former head of house. He dangled the wand loosely by his side, hoping to seem both supportive for Severus yet, when she trebucheted wild eyes at him, passive to Bella. As though he had just accidentally wandered down here, and happened to be holding Mother's wand.

Draco could clearly see the internal struggle Bella was having in her chocolaty eyes, as she tried to find another excuse for torturing the crumpled man on the rough-hewn floor behind her, and her desire to tell Severus to get bent, that she was a Pure-blood and who was he anyway? Just a half-blood, and it was not his place to interfere with her doings. He knew her Slytherin instincts were still in control when she asked, "Has Cissy completed her inspection of the mudblood? Is It to be hospitalized?"

"The extent of her injuries are not clear yet, Bellatrix," Snape calmly lied to her. "I need to go to the chemist and get her some medicine before we will know for certain. _You_ need to give me Baddock's wand for now, and leave him in peace until everything is ready for our master's arrival." And (Draco had to admire his staunch bravery) Snape actually held out his wand-free hand, like he truly believed she would willingly hand over the new acquisition to him.

She then let loose a cackle that sounded eerily similar to the Dark Lord's. It was such a bleak, empty thing. Although it was meant to convey pleasure and mirth, there was an arresting hollowness to it that made Draco want to crawl under something solid and secure and never come out from beneath it.

"Why should _you_ have his wand, you officious son-of-a-muggle? Winners keepers!" she exclaimed.

"By that line of reasoning it belongs to your sister, does it not?" he asked without hesitating.

Bella's triumphant smirk transmuted into a scowl.

"Baddock is dead anyway! He doesn't have to _confess_ to anything, Severus, because we found him _in flagrante delicto_! Our master won't give a niffler's shit what condition he's in when He arrives!" She threw all this out quickly, as though extra decibels _and speed_ could give her assiduous mendacities the quality of truth.

"You should not presume to know what the Dark Lord will or will not want, once he is apprised of this night's events, Bellatrix. I am your senior in the Dark Lord's ranks. Now do as I say or the blunt of his wrath will surely go to you," Severus told her in a lazy voice, which lacked conviction. Draco wondered what he was about.

Draco watched Bella's face turn puce and saw sparks spout from the tip of her wand. The sight of her sent him back an involuntary step and he clutched at Mother's wand unconsciously.

" _Protego_!" Draco and Severus cried simultaneously as Bella erupted.

" _Vesuvio_!" she spewed, and a great mass of red-hot magic burnt against the double shield spell and the two men were forced backward from her molten anger. Draco's knees had gone aspic as Bella's spell veritably singed his brows and lashes.

It was horrid enough that she was a lunatic, but why did she have to be so damned powerful and dangerous when wanded as well? Even Severus seemed to know that his effort to delimit her was pointless. He held up a conciliatory hand and said, "Enough! We are going now and will leave you to your own self-destructive devices, Bellatrix.

"Come, Draco," he panted at him. Draco looked at his professor and saw a strange flame of satisfaction in Snape's eye as he wiped a palsied hand over his glistening brow. "Your aunt is clearly intent on having her own way, in spite of my authority."

They made their way back up the cool stairwell together and heard her grumbling, " _Authority_ my pure-blooded _arse_ ," followed by, " _Crucio_!" and then the deafening sound of Baddock's screams escorted them into the parlour.

Once they were clear of the mess below them, Draco turned to Severus and asked, "Was that wise?"

Severus pinioned him with a calculating look and asked, "What?"

He was so terrified of his master that he loathed even to speak of him. Draco felt the heat renew itself on his face, and he lowered his voice. "If the Dark Lord would not want Baddock half-dead, as you say, perhaps we should not leave her down there with him. Sir."

A smirk pulled at his professor's mouth and he replied, "You have your mother's wand. You're welcome to try and stop her if you're worried about it, Draco."

Draco was not amused, and his look must have revealed that to the older, wiser, more powerful wizard who stood before him, for he put a hand on Draco's shoulder and leaned up a little to quietly say, "Leave it to me. _I_ left Baddock down there with her."

Draco knew he was right. As the one who sat at the Dark Lord's right side, Severus was in charge of the whole tableau since he had spun out of the fireplace; every aspect of this terrifying night, including his life and those of his parents', were currently cupped in Snape's – thus far - capable hands. Nevertheless, Draco just wanted to make it to the other side of the denouement still breathing. Then he might be able to relax. For now, all he could rely on was Professor Snape's perspicacity.

 **~x~}{~x~**

Snape held firm to his imperturbable mien while he reassured Draco and then sent him back upstairs to help his mother. But he debated internally his next step. If he called the Dark Lord now, he would have to leave the Malfoys alone and detached from his protection while he popped over to London to find a chemist. If he waited to summon him, now he had warned and then abandoned Bella to her profligate playtime, there was a good chance the Dark Lord would hold him responsible for her degenerate behavior. Bygone might be the days when she was the master's favorite, but Severus had reservations about whether they were fully forgotten. The Dark Lord's memory was much longer than the proverbial day, and that went both ways.

In fact, of late, Severus had been getting hints from the master's unflaggingly _bombastic_ confidences that he was missing his feminine facsimile. If Bella's witch-skills were not so redoubtable, Severus would have been amazed that she had ever trapezed her way to the top. The Dark Lord was not at all fond of women, and made no secret of it; after Lily's sacrificial stunt that antipathy had amplified. So while it was true that the Dark Lord had mostly collected his army with a system of blood purity, and a masculine one at that, rather than sheer power, still Bella had managed to catapult herself up with meritocratic agility. Severus believed that her outsize love for the Cruciatus Curse was what really held her back now. She was just an absolute loon. Nuttier than squirrel poo, and it was totally interfering with her usefulness.

The Dark Lord had nursed a soft spot for her in the past. Was fond of indulging her like a precocious child that was adroit at making him laugh - nobody was better at flattering him either. And her brand of flattery was nothing like anybody else's. For Bellatrix didn't simply use words to praise him – though there was _plenty_ of that – but rather her whole life was like an elaborate encomium created just for him. It was obvious to everybody that he was her axis, her planet, her sun, her whole fucking universe. The Dark Lord was flattered by it. Who wouldn't be, come to that? Who wouldn't be pleased to know that there was a person who spent all their spare time planning out how to best serve them? Severus wouldn't be at all surprised to discover Bella even took the Dark Lord's convenience into account when deciding when and where she should go to the loo. Severus didn't see how it could possibly _matter_ , but he could be sure that Bellatrix had analyzed it _thoroughly_.

Sometimes Severus felt a mad desire to tell Bellatrix that she was barking up the wrong tree. Not because he thought the Dark Lord was a homosexual. As far as Severus could tell, he was asexual - but, as with all obsessions, Bella was too irrepressibly embowered in desire to see that her Master had no interest in pursuits as _earthy_ as copulation. Perhaps she did know this, though. It was hard to follow the quixotic train of her derailed thoughts.

A break in the screams from below him tugged Severus back to the pressing dilemma of when to call the Dark Lord.

He supposed he would go to the chemist first and then send for him. There was a good chance that he could get by unscathed, and even if the Dark Lord succumbed to his wrath with Severus in his sights, he was certain it wouldn't take the master long to refocus his anger at Bellatrix and Baddock – the far guiltier culprits of this morbid night.

Severus pulled out his wand and Apparated to London.


	25. Away From Hurt

**Posted: 01/30/16**

 _"Sir," she turned serious, troubled eyes to him, "sir, will you promise me something?"_

 _"Well," he hesitated. "If it is within my power and inclination, I shall."_

 _She was silent for a moment and then she began her request, "Will you promise me that…no matter how things between us work out- I mean," she stopped again. He watched her gathering her thoughts and saw that her eyes were glistening with some suppressed emotion. "I just want you to promise me that, no matter what happens from here on out, you'll never bring me back here, to him."_

 **Away from Hurt**

 **19th** **September, 1995**

 **10:30 pm**

Dumbledore had absolutely no intention of bringing her back to these people and told her so immediately. "You have my word."

"Now then," he instructed her, "If you'll just take a strong grip on your valise, and a light grip on my arm here, we'll be on our way."

Luxminder was confused about why she had to hold his arm for them to leave and wondered if it was to do with magic. "Is it for magic?" she asked, her voice underscored with excitement and a dash of fear.

"Yes. And it will feel quite strange and uncomfortable, I'm afraid. But it is the most expeditious way to achieve our destination, Ms. O."

"Please, call me Lux," she told him.

"That's lovely, Lux," he responded and held out his arm for her to take. "In Latin it means l-"

"Light." She looked a bit abashed for interrupting him, but then told him, "I know."

Dumbledore gave a small nod and a smile, made a mental note not to underestimate her intelligence, and held out his arm for her once more.

Instead of putting her hand on him, she eyed it cautiously while she asked, "And what shall I call you, sir?" She vaulted her eyes up to his. "Professor?"

"That will do, I suppose, although I am not your professor. You are more than welcome to call me Mr. Dumbledore if you wish," he said, and then, without further ado, he took hold of her arm, anxious to leave, and Apparated to Grimmauld Place.

He could feel immediately that she hadn't come with him. Even through the tubular compression – which could never be expressed as pleasant, but which he'd grown long used to - the absence of her arm in his hand was known to him. Dumbledore popped onto the stoop at number 12 without his Muggle companion.

Without hesitating to ponder the 'whys' of what had just happened, he Apparated back to her.

As soon as she heard the loud crack and realized that Dumbledore had gone without her, Luxminder's heart quickened with fear. He'd left her here!

But then he was back, looking quite perturbed.

"I'm sorry, Lux." Dumbledore stood quietly for a moment, and then said, "Let's try that again, shall we?"

This time, frightened that she'd be abandoned, Luxminder took the arm that he presented for a handle without pause.

And then, with a bang, he was gone and alone again, gripping nothing but her own fist, she was in the first throes of panic once more. He returned immediately. But this time he didn't say anything for a tense, prolonged moment.

This happening was giving Dumbledore the most perplexed feeling, and he was disquieted by it.

"You won't leave me, will you?!" Luxminder asked him desperately.

"No, Lux, I won't," he reassured her. "Let's try once more."

This time he decided to try a more forceful method by clasping her wrist as tightly as he could.

Luxminder was surprised by the strength of such thin, gnarled fingers, and gasped a bit at the tightness of his grip. But with another whipping crack that seemed to ricochet off the very air in her bedroom, he was gone again, and then back even quicker than before.

When he was beside her again she was disturbed by the look he was giving her. He was studying her the way she looked at insects with a pin stuck through them, except without the disgust – only fascination.

"I don't think this is working," she stated bluntly.

And then he startled her by chuckling. It was a rich warming sound, soothing. "No," he agreed with kind, sparkling eyes, "I think not."

Dumbledore didn't even consider summoning the Knight Bus, and, if he was alone and unable to Apparate to London, he would have given it some serious consideration. But the Knight Bus would be full of too many observant eyes, for he knew that there were many who were trying to keep track of his movements. In addition to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Dumbledore was aware that even Fudge had a deep interest in all of his comings and goings outside of Hogwarts. The Wizarding population in England comprised a relatively small community. If Dumbledore traveled anywhere on public, magical transportation, it would be talked of. And there would also be gossip pertaining to his traveling companion.

So he sighed and surveyed their surroundings as though seeing them anew. And he _was_ viewing them through fresh eyes; ones without the advantages of magic; and later he would reflect endlessly to himself that his acquaintanceship, and later his friendship with Luxminder, forced him see the world through this perspective again and again. It would be an education that Dumbledore would take in his calm, light-hearted stride at times, and, at others, would leave him frustrated, exhilarated, and humbled. Eventually he would come to view Luxminder as his life's greatest unclaimed discovery, also one of his guiltiest indulgences. He would come to relish and rue the day she had limped into the sole scope of his expansive knowledge.

"We will have to take Muggle transport I'm afraid. Do you know how we can get to London, dear? I am at a loss, you see, because I did not plan on us having to undertake a cross-country route."

"You mean, this doesn't happen very often?" she asked in a worried voice.

"Never. To _my_ knowledge. Which I assure you is vast," he told her with placid geniality.

Luxminder was nervous. She had expected him to handle their departure with skillful ease and assumed they would have been gone from this dreadful place by now.

"Okay, well, you just need me to get us to London, and then you'll know what to do from there?" she asked.

"Yes, Lux."

"Right," she said. "We'll have to walk to the station I suppose. Unless you know how to drive?"

"A walk to the train station it will have to be. Will you allow me to send your valise ahead, to save us the burden of carrying it?"

"Er, sure." She set it down and watched him wave his wand at it. It disappeared and was replaced by the first grin he'd seen on her face since he'd come for her.

But then her face fell as she said a bit ruefully, "I haven't got any money. I mean, for the train, Mr. Dumbledore. Do you?"

"Not Muggle money, no. Perhaps he has some," Dumbledore suggested, quirking his head toward the ceiling.

Dumbledore instructed her to wait for him and left the room. Luxminder sat down on the bed and listened to his creaky journey across the upstairs, heard some muffled voices, and then, after about five minutes he returned with a hand full of notes. He handed them to her and she swiftly counted them. As she stuffed them into a pocket of her trousers, she said, "I think this will be enough. I haven't been to London since…"

As they left the bedroom and headed outside he inquired gently, "Since your parents died?"

She nodded.

"Did he hurt your leg?"

Luxminder brought her eyes up to his for a brief moment and then she softly shook her head and simply said, "No."

Dumbledore thought she would perhaps elaborate further on her perceptible limp, but she said nothing.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked her as they headed across the star and moonlit lawn. He allowed her to lead them, as well as set the pace.

"I'm fine," she said dismissively.

"Do you have any questions you'd like to ask me?" he wanted to know. Dumbledore had a million questions he burned to ask. She, on the other hand, didn't seem in the least bit inclined to talk, and confirmed this assessment with a terse, "No."

This night was not going the way Dumbledore had planned at all. He had to meet with Mad-Eye in two hours because the craggy-faced ex-Auror had sent him a missive that morning stating he'd stumbled onto some important information, and it could only be discussed in person. Dumbledore had planned to Apparate Luxminder to Grimmauld Place and spend the next two hours questioning her extensively about her "gift" to find out what she knew already and what she didn't.

Now however, after the day he had just watched her have, it did not seem kind to make her speak if she did not want to. Most especially as he had placed the burden of getting the two of them to London safely on her wispish shoulders.

He hoped she might be in a more talkative mood once they'd gained seats on the train and were at last leaving the birthplace of all her abuse and unrelieved grief. But after she bought them each a ticket and they found places to sit in a sparsely peopled compartment, Luxminder leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. She was directly across from him and Dumbledore couldn't keep his eyes off of her, didn't even try. She did seem drained. He'd noticed that right away. The way her shoulders sagged and her head tended to drop a little to one side. It seemed to Dumbledore that the strange young woman in front of him laboured beneath some too-heavy load that she dare not set down because she knew that, if ever she were to, picking it up again would be impossible.

Why had he not been able to Apparate her, he wondered. And she had not only seemed to be aware of his presence the entire day, often making eye contact with him, but she betrayed no hint of surprise when he had lifted the Disillusionment Charm to reveal himself. If Dumbledore did not know with absolute certainty that such a thing were impossible, he would have wondered if she were a witch who had been overlooked by the Ministry. As she sat there, her dark head tilted back, her inky braid hanging over her shoulder, and her purple-lidded eyes shut, Dumbledore experienced a portentous malaise. Was he doing the right thing with this? He knew that he'd just rescued her from an inhumane position, one no person should have to withstand. If Potter had had anything half so bad as that with the Dursleys, he should have removed him years ago.

Dumbledore checked his pocket watch for the time, and sighed as he poured over the timetable on his ticket. According to the indices they would not be in central London for an hour, at least. And once they did reach the closest station to Headquarters there was still a remaining balance of five kilometers.

Dumbledore moved to the seat beside the Muggle and quietly asked, "How did you find me, Lux? Can you find anyone, anywhere?"

She hefted a core-weary sigh and kept her eyes closed and her head situated on the seat as she softly answered his questions. "No, sir. I have to know what someone looks like before I can find them, once I've slipped away. I found you at the Ministry of Magic. I was watching Fudge quite a bit then. I actually considered, believe it or not…revealing myself to him, and offering to spy on _you_ in exchange for help with…that back there." Without breaking her reclined position, she lifted a slender hand to scratch daintily at the end of her nose, while Dumbledore looked on, mesmerized. "But I didn't really want to, you know? I mean, ask _him_ for help."

"You had reservations," Dumbledore stated in an encouraging and neutral voice, which indicated that her misgivings with Fudge were completely natural.

"Well, yeah, because he's such a two-faced windbag, and I… I think he seems like kind of an idiot."

Dumbledore couldn't help smiling a bit. She was astute.

"And," she continued, "I also thought… Well, he seems too…"

"Yes?"

She rested her elbow against the window and propped her head in her hand, slit her eyes and peered out at him from under her thick fringe of lashes.

When she still didn't answer, just continued to peek indecisively his way, he prompted, "He seems too what?"

Luxminder widened her eyes a bit, and started to volley her gaze between him and his reflection in the dark glass of the window. Dumbledore saw her shoulders shift a little upwards before she answered, "Power hungry."

Terrifically astute.

"But not me?" he asked.

Saying it slowly, "We-el," she stopped a moment and appraised him, as though she wanted to weigh up exactly what she should and should not express. Then she took a deep huff of breath and told him, "No, not really. I think… You know, I overheard Fudge saying all kinds of bad stuff about you, and I thought it was all true. I really did. But then one day, there you were. And you seemed so calm and-and…confident. So then I decided to watch you for a while, and I realized that you were telling the truth. I mean, I realized that you had to be.

"At first, I truly believed that I'd see you plotting to overthrow Fudge, because of how sure he'd been. But all you ever do is – I mean, when you're not busy taking care of your school and your pupils – but all I've ever really seen you doing, other than that, is talking and plotting and trying to figure things out about this Lord Voldemort fellow. That's when I realized that- that-"

"That what?" he encouraged her to keep going.

"That you…need someone like me. That everyone does. And I don't know. You do seem to genuinely care for people. Your students and your staff." She fidgeted a bit, tucked some hair behind her ear, and pushed her glasses farther up onto the bridge of her nose, while she asked him, "Are you mad at me? I thought you might be mad. I mean, b-because I watched you. I've never really told anyone what I can do before."

It was Dumbledore's turn to give pause while he took measure of what could be prudently voiced. After about a minute he said, "I suppose it depends on what you do with your…your power. If you use it to hurt people, or for your own selfish ends, then that would be very wrong. But I am glad that you want to help my cause. You will be helping yourself and all the Muggles in England for doing this.

"So, you can only find a person once you've seen them while you're…uh, 'slipped away', I believe you called it?" Lux had closed her eyes again but she nodded, to answer his question, and then told him, "When I'm slipped away, or when I've seen them, you know, in real life as well."

"I see. So once you know what someone looks like you can find them. Can you find people that you've seen in pictures?"

"No."

"You've tried it?"

"Yes."

"What do you know about Voldemort?"

She was quiet for a few moments before she responded, "Not much. Just that he was dead or something, and then that Potter kid saw him dropped into a big, magical pot of primordial goo, and when he got out he had a new body. And I know that he's a really bad wizard who wants to…I don't know. Rule everybody, I guess. And I've heard you saying things about people that he's killed. And before he died all those years ago, there was a war or something." She paused again and then continued, "And I've heard you speculating about which wizards and witches you think will help him- his Death Eaters, I think you called them. And you think that a war's going to break out again soon, and I guess that's it. I think that's all I know really."

"What do know about the Order of the Phoenix? How many of its members have you seen?"

"Well, I know what it is, if that's what you mean. It's a group of wizards and witches who want to fight him. Your friends. And, um, I've seen…Snape and McGonagall, up at the school of course, and I've seen you with a fellow named Mundungus in a really seedy looking pub. Let's see. I've seen you with a young woman named Tonks; I saw you one evening talking with a fellow named Lars at his flat, and I saw his wife, Magda, and their new baby, Imogen. She was adorable." A little smile flirted at the corners of her mouth. "Then one time I saw you visiting with a ginger-haired young man named Bill? I believe that was his name; you were at his flat with him. And I think that's about it."

"Have you seen our headquarters?"

"No. But I watched you write the address down once."

"Can you still recite it?"

"Yes."

"Say it to me, if you please."

"Number 12, Grimmauld Place. London."

"Have you watched me Apparate?"

"What's that?"

"Apparating is to magically move from one place to another. It would look like I just popped away from one spot and reappeared in another. Have you watched me do that? And if so, how long did it take you to find me again?"

"I've seen it. I didn't know what it was called, yeah? But I've definitely seen it and it doesn't take but a second for me to find you again when you do it. I've only to picture you, and then I'm there. Wherever you are, it's only a second or two for me to catch you up."

"And now I need to ask you something, and it is vital that you are truthful. Have you ever seen Harry Potter?"

She didn't even pause. "Not yet. No. I think I just missed him once though."

"Not yet," Dumbledore muttered to himself.

"Where will I stay?"

Dumbledore was so deep in thought, he didn't answer at once. "In light of what I've just learned, I am not sure, Lux."

They were quiet for a while after this exchange, and only Luxminder's punctuating yawns belied her consciousness.

Dumbledore kept one eye cocked toward the little electric sign that brightly flashed the next stopping point, and was trying to decide which station would bring them closest to Grimmauld Place. He was also trying to decide who should be told what, in regards to Lux. Dumbledore had long ago learned that transparency was the safest and swiftest route to trust and, in many cases, productivity, but he also knew that sometimes secrets could serve imperative purposes for protection. He'd decided, before he ever set off to retrieve her, that he wouldn't introduce members of his Order to Luxminder until he had established, irrevocably, more certainties about her "power" and, most importantly, her intentions. He reflected that if she were a pupil of his, he would already possess key insights into her personality, simply by knowing which house the Sorting Hat had placed her in. As he sat there, counting down the minutes to their destination, watching her metallicy teeth flash each time she yawned, he wondered if she had the calculating heart of a Slytherin, the daring of a Gryffindor, the sharpest wit of a Ravenclaw, or the stalwart loyalty of a Hufflepuff. If only he knew that, he felt he would have some handle on how to approach her. A better angle, a cleaner edge for dealing with her.

As was inevitable, no matter how patiently or impatiently they awaited the moment, they were in central London, and were soon exiting at the proper station. Grimmauld Place was only about five kilometers from this point and Dumbledore apologized as he told her they should probably walk, and apologized again for making her hike so far when it was so late and she must be very tired. But she shrugged and yawned and told him she wasn't that sleepy, and then she yawned again.

After about twenty minutes Dumbledore led her through a small park. She seemed a bit nervous away from the street lamps and Luxminder folded her arms across her chest, hunched her shoulders as though trying to shrink, and she kept darting worried glances into the deepest shadows.

Dumbledore stopped by a bench. The square in front of Number 12 was, he knew, just around the next clump of bushes.

"Please sit down here for a moment while I go and check something," Dumbledore directed her.

"You're going to leave me alone in a dark London park, in the middle of the night?" she asked, clearly shocked. Her tone was a touch disapproving.

"I am going to cast some spells," he explained quietly, as he drew out his wand, "that will deter all passers-by from approaching you from a ten foot radius, Lux. Just don't move from this spot, and I promise you shan't be waiting here for long. We are almost to your bed, and a bath should you want it."

When the spells were cast, Dumbledore walked into the impenetrable shadows and disappeared.

Luxminder yawned and lay down on the hard bench. Within seconds she was asleep.


	26. Feelings

**Posted:** 2/12/16

 **Beta: the artful scribbler**

 **Feelings**

 **17th October, 1998**

 **6:30am**

" _Feelings_."

They were in the Malfoys' sitting room and the Dark Lord seemed unable to maintain his usual composure. He was gripping on a tumbler of elf-made wine, clutching and alternately relaxing it in his long bone-white hands, and he seemed to Severus like a coiling cobra, contemplating his strike. Then sometimes he would put aside his glass, along with his attempts at equanimity, to prowl back and forth, back and forth, like some feline predator that's on the verge of pouncing. His face-mask distorted grotesquely as anger and contempt crashed over him – then ebbed. Ever on his guard, Severus watched the skin over the Dark Lord's protrusive cheekbones stretch and detract, his red eyes bulging and slitting. In the watered-down, morning light the Dark Lord's skin as was phosphorescent as that of a coral-reef fish, and Severus knew that his master was as angry at the anger as he was at the whole situation.

"Don't they just activate your gag reflex?"

Severus didn't say anything. He spent too much time in this position to be in any doubt about his role in the invective. All the Dark Lord truly wanted was an audience.

"Feelings will be the downfall of Wizardingkind if we're not careful. The epicureans and the carnal, rutting animals…they all make me want to vomit. Every vice, every fetish and the gluttonous indulgences of the flesh, even avarice: I put them all aside in my youth with stringent discipline and never looked back. Those…penurious wizards and witches lurking in the night-cloaked crevices of Knockturn Alley trying to procure the illicit, illusory potions. I've seen them you know. Smelt them. _Loathed_ them. Even killed a few. They want to escape from their pain - I'll give them an escape!

"I'm trying to build something here, Severus. Something true and pure and powerful. I want an _empire_. But everywhere I look all I see are degrading…emetic _feelings_ glaring out at me from everybody's eyes. Why don't the ruddy fools realize they'd be better off without them? These _feelings_ only cling to people like barnacles. Weigh them down. Hold them back. Prevent them from accomplishing their purpose in life. Do you want to know what their purpose is, Severus?"

Severus had a feeling he was going to find out.

With leonine grace, the Dark Lord resumed his pensive loping; his long arms swung severely as he sauntered through his paces.

"It's to _breed_ Severus. The muggle-to-wizard ratio is alarmingly lopsided. What I can't understand - will never understand - is how so many people - people who _claim_ to believe that Pure-bloods are the epitome of magical strength, intelligence, and refinement - aren't doing their parts to _replenish_ the population. There are examples of this everywhere I look; especially in the confines of my own followers. Take the Malfoys, for an instance. Lucius and Narcissa have always espoused a torrid credence of the superiority of Pure-bloods. So why haven't they done their part to people Britain with more of them? I'm certain that Narcissa could have made more than one little pure-blood baby. Perhaps she can still? She certainly looks young enough to squeeze out one more offspring. Lucius and she should only hope that a second child would be more valuable than that worthless _boy_ of theirs. But when I contemplate how abysmally incompetent they all are, it's highly doubtful this is something that can be expected. Not reasonably.

"And what about Bellatrix? She probably isn't young enough to conceive and carry a child at this point, but she had plenty of opportunities when she was younger. She's so passionate when it comes to _talking_ about the importance of the Pure-bloods being the indisputable pinnacle of civilization - and she's certainly adept at _killing_ anyone who disagrees. But she's been unforgivably remiss when it has come to _ensuring_ that the world has enough of them. I was on the point of telling her, seventeen years ago, that it would please me greatly if she and Rodolphus would have some children – she was young enough then - but then my powers were... Well, you know. And now it's too late.

"Nott. Macnair. Both of the Carrows." He gestured vaguely as he listed the perpetrators, as if they were standing present in the room. "Crabbe, Goyle, Rookwood, and many more. All of them have only bothered to have one or two children or none at all. _Why_?

"The Pure-bloods are racing toward extinction. Everybody knows it. It isn't as though it's some big _secret_ ; our entire species has been waning terribly for the last century. And all of the wealthiest, most educated and influential wizards have such small families. It's absurd. Then there are the blood traitors. The Weasleys and ignorant swine like that servant Martha who works for the Malfoys - and _they_ have more pure-blooded spawn than they can provide for!" He shook his head sadly – or as close to sadly as was possible for a raving sociopath.

"How has it all gotten so _backward_ , Severus? I don't understand why the ones who can afford abundant families - who have the most to offer, the most material and magical advantages - aren't prodigiously breeding!

"Ministers for Magic have, for the past five decades, ordered a consensus report to be taken of all the magical citizens of England with notations of blood-status duly made in the margins. Painstaking charts and indices have been erected from this data, and then it's been calculated and tabulated by analysts and published in scholastic journals, the Daily Prophet, and even a variety of magazines. Certain concerned government officials - and even a couple of prominent citizens - have commissioned small books to be written, with compelling language which are meant to appeal to logos, ethos, and even invoke pathos. They've been illustrated with colorful, easy to read graphs so that even the most _simple_ - _minded_ wizards can comprehend them. I have seen several of these books residing on the shelves in the libraries of my servants. They all _know_ , yet they haven't _procreated_.

"I tell you, Severus…" He nodded sagely. "I've been born in the nick of time. Perhaps it isn't even a random coincidence. Perhaps the heavens and the universe are weeping in the face of pure-blood extinction, and so have conspired to bring about a wizard who not only has the power to reverse the cogs of countdown but one with enough _vision_ to recognize the courses of action that need be taken! A wizard who won't let ludicrous _emotions_ , and namby-pamby notions of 'human rights' stand in the way of corralling the weak-minded. Everybody knows what needs to be done. But nobody - save _me_ \- has the strength to cut through the propaganda created by lofty philosophers and moralizers, those pedagogic professors of 'ethics'. It's all so much fluff and nonsense, and it sickens me.

"There's only one truth that matters. One law that rules every corner and species on Earth. And that law is _power_ , Severus. Strength, intelligence, and the conviction of knowing that you - and you alone - have the right to lead, govern, and command every person who doesn't have the power to stop you.

"As far as I'm concerned the time for delicacy of mind and diplomatic entreaty is long past. As the pure-bloods have refused to grapple with their moribundity, haven't willingly accepted the onus for their own continuity then it's time for a blunt push in the proper direction. If I don't take the necessary steps, then in another one hundred years or less, all the magical blood in England will be too far _diluted_ and _polluted_ with mud to be called pure.

"Baddock was a pure-blood wizard. He was born with life's most valuable gifts and all he wanted to do was squander them by groping and licking that muddy-blooded whore. I magnanimously granted him a position in my precious ranks, gave him the opportunity to increase his material worth. Even more than that, I empowered him to exercise his rights as a wizard over the limoculous Muggles. But instead of repaying me by taking pains to swell the pure-blood population, he allowed his _feelings_ to govern his actions."

Although the Dark Lord was referring to him in past tense, technically Baddock was still alive. But at this point that was mere semantics.

"Sometimes I think I'm too indulgent with my servants, Severus. Allowing them to have their _debauched_ ways with the muggles. But how can I deny them their fun? I humour them their orgiastic appetites because I understand human nature. I'm well aware, you see, of how intoxicated people can become by the _forbidden_. And how could I even begin to control it? Now that I have Jane I suppose I could, but what a waste of a resource!" He sounded quite bored, as though he was reciting some tedious, meaningless litany he had long ago committed to memory and then whose meaning he had promptly discarded, as he said, "And then I would have to punish or kill them when they disobey me, which I know they inevitably would.

"I've seriously considered, more than once, creating a potion that would stifle and ultimately eliminate the parts of the mind which fabricate feelings, having it mass-produced, and making the daily consumption of it mandatory for all of my subjects. Every insubordination, every lie and vagary, and each act of perfidy that I've ever encountered can all be traced back to a feeling. Hatred, anger, fear, grief…" His upper lip curled in contempt as he spewed the last one from his mouth, " _Love_. Usually it's some toxic and pathetic combination of them all.

"Take Baddock for instance. He was in love with a Muggle. He hated her too, you know." And then pretending that this revelation had educed a shocked response from his one-man audience he continued, "Oh yes, I can assure you, Severus. There was plenty of loathing layered in with the love. The moment he scented detection, he was so overcome with fear he had to eliminate the source of his shame and then he was awash with grief and rage; and it was in this fecal stew - this tempest of _feeling -_ that he made all of his decisions regarding his revenge. You see the dilemma? The irrational coil of emotion which bound up all of his good sense and his capacity for logic?

"What am I to do with the Malfoys, Severus?"

Severus was silent for a few moments until he realized that the megalomaniac's soliloquy was apparently over.

"Well, my lord. They did save her."

"Did they, Severus? Did they truly save her? How long will it be before my little spy is… _emotionally_ ready to work again? The Malfoys have proven so utterly worthless to me of late. Worse than useless, really, when I consider how much they've managed to bungle. I gave them one task, Severus. One simple task: protect my mudblood.

"How many of their failures must I suffer before I just put them out of their misery? It would be a mercy on my part, really, as I doubt they'll ever recover their former level of nobility. The worst of it is that I'm now forced to wonder whether Lucius has ever been as dedicated as I imagined him in the beginning. You know I've never seen him kill, Severus? It's true," he reiterated, as though Severus had signaled to contradict him. (Severus was perfectly aware of this fact.) "Even torturing the unworthy and the unfaithful does not give Lucius the same level of pleasure as it does so many of my satellites. You don't seem to enjoy violence that much either, and in the past I merely relegated his reservations to the same level-headedness that I do you. I assumed he had all of his emotions firmly in hand, but now…I don't know, Severus. The way he cleaves to his wife and son is worrisome.

"If only I could combine and bottle your equanimity with Bella's unsurpassed dedication and dispense these two supreme qualities to all of my servants."

Ascribing his temerity to his exhaustion and the currant wine he was imbibing at the Dark Lord's insistence, Severus said, "My lord, my stoic disposition would hardly unite with Bella's fervor, for their dichotomic natures, I'm afraid, preclude them from coalescing.

"I think that killing the Malfoys might prove even more disruptive to Jane's delicate disposition. You may want to take her… _feelings_ on the matter into account, before you make your decisions regarding them.

"And I know that Lucius is in a slump lately, my lord. Everyone can see his wretchedness and it is _unsavory_ , to say the least, to see how subdued his myopic decisions have rendered him. But when I consider the sort of spells that Baddock used to muffle Jane's screams, it's amazing – miraculous really – that the Malfoys even managed to preserve her life let alone her virginity."

The Dark Lord resumed his diatribe. "Lucius didn't even reapply the spells of protection around her door and windows, Severus! He could have used his wife's wand, but he didn't do it because he simply _didn't_ _care_. This is nothing to do with luck, but rather a simple case of negligence! He has an appalling apathy in regards to my spy. Don't think I haven't noticed their attitude toward her position and her…her whole existence. She works for me now! I value her and the information she provides me. That's all that should matter to those imbeciles, not her blood-status or her lack of magic and hygiene. They should undertake every assignment I give them with vigor and resolve. They are allowing their _feelings_ for her hereditary to obscure their judgment. It's inexcusable.

"When I think of the leniency I've granted those idiots, it enrages me to see how reluctantly they care for my spy. They have to marginalize her at every possible opportunity. I think the time has come for me to find a new home for her. The Malfoys be damned!"

Severus couldn't counter much of this reasoning, as all of this was too accurate. Lucius, who in the past had always seemed so dauntlessly pragmatic, had been careless, once again, with what the Dark Lord had charged to his safekeeping. He _should have_ been more diligent with spell-casting around Jane's door and the windows. Severus and the Dark Lord had, with their magic and their wands, done a thorough sweep around the room to detect the spells Badddock had used to gain entry, stave off interrupters, and stifle Jane's screams. Baddock's spells had been ill-executed for the most part. But they had felt vestigial spells, neglected, deteriorated protections spells that had been cast around her bedroom door months ago. Lucius had never bothered to strengthen and renew these spells. Not for ages. Baddock needn't have bothered going in the window. A simple _Alohomora_ to unlock her door, and he would have had total access to his prey.

And the Malfoys were, in many ways, neglecting Jane. They provided her the basic elements she needed to not die: shelter, warmth, food. But from his brief glimpse into her private world, Severus knew that, like any human, Jane craved kindness and affection. The Malfoys were dismissing her emotionally.

It was a conundrum. Severus couldn't say, or even imply, what he really thought about the impossibilities of the whole situation. It wasn't simply the paradoxical nature of Jane and what she represented to magic, because it was also intrinsically linked to her as a person; a feeling, thinking person. She was intriguing to the pundits, an object to be experimented with – drowned in potions, immured in magic, parsed, anatomized, vivisected; she was merely baffling to the ignorant; and invariably infuriating to any pure-blood supremist who might be asked to give a damn for her; but the invidious Jane could never be a simple, feeling child who only and truly _needed_ to be loved. Not to any Death Eater. From an objective distance whatever enigma she was, confounding or fascinating, all any Death Eater could see when they scrutinized her at close range was a Muggle. A Muggle with a unique power, which had given her a measure of status. It was neither a high nor low one – for her status had no level within the Death Eater spectrum. It was separate, too other. But even so, to all of them, even to an extent Severus, it seemed too warped to be allowed.

"Whom were you thinking to care for her, my lord? If not the Malfoys?"

The Dark Lord returned to the mantle and took up his tumbler for a brooding sip of his liquor and then idly ran his chalky index finger across the marble shelf. "The Yaxleys perhaps. Or even the Goyles." After he'd done speaking he turned to Severus and surveyed him.

Severus didn't move or speak.

The Dark Lord's face twitched minutely and then Severus responded with, "Well, I think Jane will be completely miserable with either of them. You should consult her preference."

The Dark Lord looked a bit surprised when Severus said 'miserable'. He turned away from him again, was thoughtful for a moment, and then he resumed his pacing before the fire. "Miserable. Think you? She seems miserable here as well. Or at least not happy.

"What to do with that amorphous child! That… little Muggle. What _is_ she? What do you think about Jane, Severus? What conclusions have you reached about the unnaturalness of her being?"

Severus chose his words as carefully as he could when he answered, "She is… an enthralling creature to be sure, my lord. I've longed for a closer inspection of her since the first day that you brought her here." This was the complete truth. "However, for all of her…incongruity, I see… a child when I look at her. A helpless, miserable child. Have you considered… My lord, have you thought that the best home for her would be with some Muggles? A family perhaps."

"Of course I've thought it Severus! And then I discarded it. It's so unappealing to think of my spy living in that sort of squalor.

"Do you have any idea what's she done, Severus? What she has given me? In a few short weeks the Wizengamot will pass a law that I've written, one long overdue, to restore the balance and invigorate our kind. I could have achieved it months ago, without Jane's assistance, but it's through her work that I've done this without… bloodshed, without stripping prominent members of the magical community from their positions of influence! To the public eye, these people, who have staunchly supported the rights of Muggles throughout their political careers, have made revolutions in their ideologies. Without overt displays of coercion and foul-play, they simply seem to have been… persuaded."

The Dark Lord laughed with so much sepulchral glee it brought to Severus's mind an undertaker, and he felt all the muscles in his back, neck, and shoulders stiffening to the sound of it, like the onset of rigor mortis.

"You would think from hearing Jane's rigmarole that she would prove inutile, but she can be quite voluble when the need arises. True, she blunders her pronunciations indiscriminately and she often transposes her tenses and inverts her pluralisms, but, all in all, I am more than pleased by her communications. You see, do you not Severus, the brilliance of her ability? What she has done?"

Severus gave a rigid nod, not knowing whether he should be pleased that her life – insofar as the Dark Lord was concerned – was so safe, or worry about what sort of histrionics her power might engender in the future.


	27. A Serious Mistake

**Posted: 2/20/16**

 _"You're going to leave me alone in a dark London park, in the middle of the night?" she asked, clearly shocked. Her tone was a touch disapproving._

 _"I am going to cast some spells," he explained quietly, as he drew out his wand, "that will deter all passers-by from approaching you from a ten foot radius, Lux. Just don't move from this spot, and I promise you shan't be waiting here for long. We're almost to your bed, and a bath should you want it."_

 _When the spells were cast, Dumbledore walked into the impenetrable shadows and disappeared._

 _Luxminder yawned and lay down on the hard bench. Within seconds she was asleep._

 **A Serious Mistake**

 **19** **th** **S** **eptember, 1995**

Dumbledore did not like leaving Luxminder on her own, in the open, and so he almost sprinted across the square and hurriedly mounted the steps.

Without knocking, he _Alohomora_ -ed the door – against all protocol - and flew straight in. Once he reached the stairs he paused, listening for any clue as to Sirius's whereabouts. The kitchen door swung open quickly, and the very wizard he was looking for was standing at the bottom of the steps, wand out, ready to curse-gouge Dumbledore's eyeballs.

"It is I, Siri-" he began, breathing hard, raising his hands up, immediately assuming a posture of defenselessness.

"I'll decide who you are!" Sirius called up, his bony face set in a brutal scowl.

The volatile and voluble portrait of his blasted mum began to decry them all. " _Filth! Vermin! Loathsome of my loi-!_ "

Sirius swiftly jerked his arm and magicked the curtains closed, but his eyes never left Dumbledore's, and the wand was instantly retrained on the wizard who had come bursting in without punctiliously following the required procedures laid forth for every entrant.

"The night Wormtail escaped," he called up softly, "and rejoined Voldemort, you came to me where I was locked up in Professor's Flitwick's office at Hogwarts and questioned me. I told you everything. The reason I escaped from Azkaban, and how I did it. Once I finished telling you my story, I said one last thing to you before you left the room. Tell me what that was."

His hands still held up in a gesture of submission, Dumbledore answered immediately. "You didn't _say_ anything. You asked me a question. You asked after your godson, Harry Potter. You wanted to know if I thought Harry was happy, and had turned out well."

Sirius lowered his wand.

Dumbledore went down the stairs and silently beckoned Sirius into the kitchen with him.

Sirius could see that something had riled Dumbledore, and immediately asked, "Has something happened at Hogwarts? Is Harry hurt?"

"No, no, Sirius. Everything and everyone is fine. Who's here?!" Dumbledore asked with unrepressed urgency. He began to roam the kitchen, peering into the corners. "Has Remus come back early from the Divianati's? Are any members of the Order here at the moment?"

Sirius was quite surprised by Dumbledore's unsettled questions and the way he was walking rapidly through the dim kitchen, looking everywhere, even inside the pantry, as though it was quite common to discover guests lurking in there. Well, maybe Mundungus occasionally…

"No one is here, Dumbledore. I'm alone." _As usual_. "What is it? What's happening?"

Dumbledore came back to Sirius and pierced him with those bright, clear blue eyes. "I am sorry. Only I'm a bit anxious, you see. I have brought someone with me and I-" He stopped for a moment while he studied Sirius's face and appeared to be gathering his thoughts.

"Someone's here? Who? I didn't see anyone with you. Is he waiting in the foyer?" Sirius asked.

"No," Dumbledore was quick to say. Then he was silent again. Thinking. Sirius could see that Dumbledore was thinking very hard about something. He almost spoke again, to ask him what was wrong. But he decided to simply wait, knowing that Dumbledore would explain himself when he was ready and not a moment sooner. And very soon he began, "I need your help Sirius." He paused.

Sirius hurried to assure him. All he wanted to bloody do was help with _something_. "Of course, Dumbledore. You know I'm more than willing to assist with whatever needs doing."

But then Dumbledore was silent again. It was such strange behavior from this hoary wizard, who was always so collected and calm, and so eloquent. Sirius tried to remember if he'd ever seen Dumbledore at a loss for words before. He couldn't.

Finally Dumbledore began, but what he said didn't provide a scrap of the illumination which typically accompanied his explanations. "I need your help, Sirius. But it is to be a secret. For now, that is. I would like you to help me care for someone, a very young person. And I think that absolute secrecy is in order at the moment. I do not know that much about her yet. I haven't anywhere else to take her tonight. I could not Apparate with her, or I might have taken her to the Burrow. I think Molly should have done well by her. But that does not seem to be an option at the moment and so I am enlisting you. I know you will do very good for it, Sirius. I have complete confidence in you, but you must not tell _anyone_ that she is here!"

"Wait," Sirius began in confusion, "who-who is she? What do you mean a very young person?"

"She is-," and here he hesitated again, looking deep into Sirius's eyes. "Do you trust me, Sirius?"

This question couldn't have been more shocking than if Dumbledore had asked him, "Do you hate Voldemort?" Because the answer to both of them could not have been more obvious.

Sirius tossed back his head as he loosed a clipped laugh, a tendency he had when he was taken by surprise. "Of course I _trust_ you, Dumbledore! What's going on?! What is it that you're asking me to do exactly?"

"I cannot explain everything to you because I do not know everything myself. But I have taken a chance, you see? A great chance. I have discovered someone – or rather, _she_ discovered _me._ But I think she might make an enormous difference in the fight against Voldemort. She is very young though, Sirius, and she is-" Dumbledore was speaking quickly and he panted a little. "She is a Muggle."

"A _Muggle_!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Shhh!" Dumbledore hissed. "Is Kreacher about?" he asked, peering anxiously around again. "You must tell him, _order_ him specifically that he is never to mention her existence to _anyone._ "

Sirius quieter, but rather stupidly, repeated, "A Muggle! Dumbledore-!" but then he stopped, utterly nonplussed. This was the murkiest clarification Dumbledore had ever provided.

"I have left her far too long, Sirius! I need to get her and bring in her from the cold night. But will you help me?! Sirius, can I trust you not to tell anyone about her until I know more about who she is and what she is capable of?"

" _Capable_ of?" Sirius repeated, still at sea.

"Sirius, will you keep her here and care for her and not tell anyone about her, until I am able to come back and talk to her? I need time to think and make a plan for her."

Dumbledore was so solemn and sincere. Sirius was beginning to realize that this was not, as he had first thought, a very bad attempt at a _very bad_ joke.

"I know I can trust you, Sirius," Dumbledore said confidently. "I have to go and get her. Put your house under lockdown until I return. I will use the Order's knock. Be sure that you check the peep-hole before you open the door-"

"But what if it's an Order member? McGonagall or Kingsley? They'll need to be let in!"

Dumbledore grabbed Sirius's arm, lowered his voice, and began to pull him out of the kitchen. He dragged him up the stairs and into the foyer while he quietly told him, "It is only for a little bit. I am supposed to be meeting with Mad-Eye and I am already running spectacularly late. Let us just get her settled in, the highest floor perhaps, where no one ever goes. But this is your house of course, so I will leave it to your discretion, Sirius. Now, when I am out the door lock it all down. Wait here for us. I will only be a moment!"

And with that said Dumbledore was out the door, rushing down the steps, and he was almost across the square before Sirius realized he was meant to lock the house down.

 **~x~}{~x~**

Luxminder could not tell how much time had passed since she had fallen asleep on the park bench and now, Dumbledore gently shaking her, "Wake up, Lux," whispering to her. There was no confusion about where she was and who she was with. It was her savior, her champion, come to take her out of the chilly night air, in for a hot bath and a soft bed.

She followed him bleary-eyed across a street, his guiding hand on her back making sure she did not veer into traffic. He led her up some steep steps and they stopped on the stoop while he knocked on the wide black door. Five times he rapped, paused, gave three more, paused again, and Dumbledore completed the encoded rhapsody with another four. Luxminder felt the whole porch humming and then it seemed to emit a susurration, like a quiet gasp. Something poured through her, some reluctant release, and the door in front of her creaked open.

Luxminder looked up into a startling picture of a man. So wan and drawn he was. Emaciated. She took in a valance of deep brown hair framing his pale hollow face, his mouth and jaw darkened by a thinnish thatch of neglected stubble, and his grey intelligent eyes, frankly curious, were the only gentling aspect of this haunted face. They scanned across her personage twice before Dumbledore said, "Let us in, Serious! It is not safe to linger here."

The Serious man moved back and to the side, as he widened the door to allow them through.

Luxminder's sleepiness fell back, made way for more shock, as she was ushered into the creepiest place she had ever seen. She stood in the entryway, quite awed as she absorbed each filigreed, gilded, and dusty detail of her surroundings. It was dark inside the vestibule, darker than the cloudy night she had just left. All she could think to compare it to was the set of an old Dracula movie as her roving eyes fell on an antique console and a monstrosity of an umbrella stand. The umbrellas resided in a huge, hollowed leg of a…a something. It was boulder green and grey and had long toes with grimy talons. It was quite baffling and horrific. Her eyes were drawn to the ceiling, and she was amazed to see that it was arced and hung with three black chandeliers, filled with unlit candles, and they were thickly swathed with cobwebs. They looked like horridly mouldering wedding cakes dripping with folds of dark grey frosting. It was all so gothic and otherworldly and Luxminder was gripped with strong, conflicting desires to explore the rest of this unearthly place, and also to turn around and flee from it.

Luxminder was already in love with magic, though she hadn't as many chances to see it as she would have liked. This was certainly a place filled with it - magic made and magic kept. It possessed the same majestic antiquity as Hogwarts but, unlike the school, there was a sinister feel to it as well. It seemed a place where dark plots had been incubated and hatched, where dirty deeds were frequently committed and then covered up.

Dumbledore was whispering something urgent to the Serious man and she saw him pull out a small dagger, prick the tip of his finger with it and, pressing it to the door, he whispered loudly, " _Je ferme toi maison avec ce mon sang noir_!" Immediately there was another sibilant jolt around the walls, and she could feel something inside of her. It did not have any affect on her, only it left her with the vague impression of a gripping. Then the Serious man pulled out a wand, waved it quietly over his lightly bleeding finger, and the blood vanished as the cut sealed.

Dumbledore sotto-voced her name and gestured for her to stay quiet and to follow them. After they passed through the eerie foyer, the two wizards led her up a stairway and her eyes scoured every detail, as she deliberately avoided Dumbledore's gaze as he watched the arrhythmic way she scaled the steps, the way she clung to the dusty banister.

Luxminder was startled when she realized that something with enormous eyes was looking at her. She turned her head to see who it was.

"What the-!" she gasped. "Are they- are they aliens?" Because she was facing the grossest display of taxidermy Luxminder had ever seen, and all she could think – looking up at the ascending procession of stuffed and mounted heads – was that someone had a penchant for hunting down and beheading Martians.

The Serious man belied his name when he threw his head back and began to bark at her question. Luxminder realized that this was how he laughed. She could not help smiling a little at this display of canine jocundity.

"No, Lux, they are house-elves," Dumbledore rapidly explained, and then urged her, "Come now. We must hurry."

Finally, the Serious man with the dog-laugh led them into a bedroom off the third landing. It looked the same as every other part of the house that she had seen. A ruinous splendour: a humongous four poster bed with green and silver curtains, a walnut brown wardrobe and matching dresser, and worn evergreen carpet. A thick film of dust lay over everything and more cobwebs darkened the corners. This could not be where they meant her to sleep.

Dumbledore and the other man came into the room behind her and closed the door. Luxminder turned around to face Dumbledore as she tried to think of a polite way to tell him that this room was not fit for habitation. For mice and spiders perhaps, but not humans.

"It's too dirty," she said quietly.

"Serious will get fresh sheets for the bed and- here." With a wide sweep of his wand, Luxminder watched as almost all of the dust floated up, causing the air to turn a smoggy brown and grey, and then vanished. She looked around and saw that all the dust and cobwebs had dissolved and disappeared. It did look quite a bit better, but Luxminder was still worried about the possibility of insects and rodents.

"Isn't there someplace else?" she asked him quietly. "I don't mean to sound rude or ungrateful, but this-" She stopped. Whatever she said probably _would_ sound rude and ungrateful.

"I am sorry, Lux," Dumbledore told her. He waved his wand again and she saw her bag materialize on the floor before him. With another turn of his wrist, the bag floated up and landed on the bed. "Serious will help you settle in, and he will also change the bedclothes and get you some food if you are hungry. I have to go now. I am late for an important meeting with a fellow Order member."

" _What_!" she practically yelled. " _Go_?! You can't _go_!"

Dumbledore looked shocked by her outburst. Luxminder was scared of making him mad, as he was all she had, but he couldn't possibly be thinking of leaving her here alone.

"My dear, I cannot stay any longer, much as I would like to. Serious will gladly tend to all your needs," he told her

"No!" she cried. "You can't leave me here alone with him! I don't _know_ him! I know you! I want to stay with _you_!" Luxminder was appalled as she realized that Dumbledore actually intended to leave her alone in the company of a strange man.

The strange man, with the strange name, was looking rather appalled himself, though Lux suspected it was more to do with her emotional outpouring than the notion that they were going to be left alone together.

Dumbledore was an exceptionally erudite person, blessed not only with book smarts, but he was also fortunate enough to possess that which evaded many of the most learned witches and wizards – common sense. Therefore, he was a bit surprised by his second and more glaring mistake of the evening.

"Luxminder, I have nowhere else to take you this evening and I must attend to some pressing business for the Order. Serious is a very good friend of mine and I can assure you that he will conduct himself like the gentlest of gentlemen. I know that after everything…"

Heat compressed painfully behind her eyes and Luxminder was angry to feel the tears blurring her vision, ashamed of the rivulets burning down her face. Dumbledore's mouth was moving, his jaw worked up and down to make the word sounds, but she heard none of it. She was having an out of body experience as she realized that she had erred in judgment again. It was another mistake, a terrible case of misplaced trust. Did he not know how badly she yearned to stay with him? She had chosen _him_ and he was passing her off to an unknown man like so much fluff and nonsense.

Luxminder moved to a chair in the corner and sat down, weeping. She could no longer stay standing as she was weighed down by fear and sadness. She pulled out the handkerchief that Dumbledore had given her to use only two hours ago and began sopping.

Dumbledore came to stand in front of her. He leaned down a bit to get level with her and began, "I know what you are thinking."

Luxminder made a sound which clearly indicated doubt.

"You think that you have made a mistake. And also that you have no choice. But you are wrong on both counts, Luxminder." She peeked up at him from under her long lashes. "You can choose to trust me and my friend here." He gestured at the wizard standing to the side. "Your faith in humanity is in tatters. That is perfectly understandable given all that you have endured since your parents passed away. But try to think back to how you imagined people when your world was happier and secure. Did you not believe that most human beings are basically decent and good?" He stopped here, waiting for her answer, so finally she nodded. "But then you encountered the other sort. You have lived with the kind of people who not only completely dismissed your needs, but who also cruelly imposed on you burdens that are not your responsibility and that you are not old enough to take on.

"You did not give up though. You held onto the hope of finding something better. You proactively sought to secure a life for yourself that could bring you a chance of peace and safety. This tells me that deep down you must still believe that there are people who can be trusted. And you chose me. Something about me calmed your fears, laid enough of your doubts to rest, and so you wrote to ask for my help. And I answered your call, Luxminder. I have brought you somewhere to rest and regroup. You can choose to believe me when I tell you that this man is a most trusted friend of mine. He will _never_ lay a hand on you, Luxminder.

"I wish that I could stay here with you, alleviate your worries with my presence. But a matter of some import prevents me from following both of our wishes. Understand that it might not be tomorrow, but as soon as I can I shall come back here to see you.

"My final request," and he paused and glanced at the Serious man, "and this is for both of you, is that you do not leave this room except to use the toilet and to bathe. Serious can bring you trays of food, but Lux," he hesitated again to add gravity to his next words, "you know why it is imperative that you not see anybody until I have decided who you should or should not meet. Do you understand and agree with me?"

The look he received from her was one he had received from innumerate pupils over the last four decades. He was fairly certain that she was doing all she could to not roll her eyes at him. "Yes, sir," she answered, in a calm respectful tone.

He hoped she was not prone to petulance.

 **~x~}{~x~**

When they exited the room, Dumbledore locked the door.

Immediately he headed to the staircase and Sirius began to question him. "What was that? Is she a bit…you know, unbalanced?"

"No, Sirius. Her reaction was completely rational given what I saw when I went to fetch her this afternoon. She has just had a terrible time of it since her parents passed away. Her mistrust of strange men is not simply understandable, I should have expected it really. But I do have a lot on my plate at the moment, and that one gave me the slip I am afraid."

"Well, will she be alright? I mean, what happened to her? Is there anything I shouldn't do or say? Is she liable to go mental if I… I don't know, look at her a certain way?"

"No, no, Sirius. You have nothing to fear. Just be yourself. Do not ask her too many questions though." They were almost to the entryway now. "Just take care of her basic needs, and if she seems lonely and inclined to converse then I haven't an issue with you speaking to her, of course. But otherwise, let her be. I will return as soon as I can. In two to three days to be sure." At the door now, he turned to him with these parting words: "You're a kind person, Sirius. Kindness is what she needs most."

 _Kindness_ , he thought, as he watched Dumbledore swirl out of existence with a piercing crack. _I can do that_.


End file.
